The local bourse extended its bullish momentum for the fourth consecutive week, primarily driven by the gains recorded by top cement player, BUACEMENT that gained +19.1 in its share price during the week.
For investors in the market, this translated into N396 billion profit, spurred by gains recorded by blue chip companies led by BUACEMENT across the sub- sectors.
Other drivers of the week’s positive outlook include Royal Exchange with 12.50% gain, Guinness with 11.4% uptick in share price, and Prestige Assurance which gained 9.59% in share value.
As a result of the gain, the equities market capitalisation on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) closed at N26.624 trillion up from N26.228 trillion the penultimate week.
Another equities gauge, the NGX All-Share Index (ASI), that tracks general price movement in the market, closed the week 1.5% higher at 48,881.93 basis points from 48,154.65 points with the Month-to-Date, MtD and Year-to-Date, YtD gains advancing to 2.6% and 14.4%, respectively.
Meanwhile, activity levels mirrored the market’s broad gauge as trading volume and value surged by 45.8% and 22.8% week-on-week.
Specifically, investors traded a total turnover of 1.225 billion shares worth N15.243 billion in 15,317 deals during the week, in contrast to a total of 839.978 million shares valued at N12.418 billion that exchanged hands the previous week in 16,183 deals.
Measured by volume, the Financial Services Industry led the activity chart with 514.067 million shares valued at N5.104 billion traded in 6,489 deals; thus contributing 41.97% and 33.48% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Construction/Real Estate Industry followed with 463.348 million shares worth N1.620 billion in 210 deals while the third place was the Conglomerates Industry, with a turnover of 69.017 million shares worth N86.431 million in 528 deals.
Meanwhile, top three most vibrant equities during the week are UPDC Real Estate Investment Trust, FBN Holdings Plc and Transnational Corporation Plc, as they collectively accounted for 765.230 million shares worth N4.282 billion in 847 deals, thus contributing 62.47% and 28.09% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Further analysis of the week’s activities showed that all sectoral indices advanced except for the banking which shed 0.1% in value.
Conversely, Industrial Goods index gained +8.5% as the most significant uptick in the week, followed by Consumer Goods that rose by +1.6%. Others are the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices that advanced by +1.3% and +0.3% respectively.
Remarks:
Commenting on the development, experts at Cordros Capital envisaged that the bulls will retain their dominance as buying activities due to positioning for 2022 Full Year dividends is expected suppress selling activities.
“In addition, we believe the outcome of the bond auction scheduled to hold next week will also shape market sentiments.
“Notwithstanding, we advise investors to take positions in only fundamentally justified stocks as the unimpressive macro story remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings, the said in a note available to Business Metrics.
Similarly, Ambrose Omordion, chief analyst at InvestData Limited, explained that the continuation of the uptrend depends largely on the interplay of market forces and inflow of funds into market in the new week commencing today.
According to him, “Market players had continued to digest the mixed macroeconomic data released before now ahead of November inflation reports and Q3 company fundamentals in the midst of year-end seasonality and expected 2023 unaudited accounts in January, alongside the election uncertainty.”
