Rates of Return on Investment in Common Stocks in Nigeria

The purpose of this study is to examine equity investors` rate of return on common stocks in Nigeria. Data were obtained for ten years from the twenty most capitalised firms in the capital market. We found that the rates of return in common stock in the form of dividend for the firms studied varies significantly. For the entire market, we found that the rate of return on common stock as dividend was 4.323%. The dividend payout ratio for the market was 57.546%. On the relationship between Fixed Assets and dividend per share, it is not ascertain whether or not fixed assets significantly determine dividend per share, because results from the empirical analysis showed that while for ten companies, fixed assets tend to determine dividend per share, results for the other ten showed otherwise.