Investors in the Nigerian stock market recorded N428 billion profit accruing from the weekly trading of equities on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited last week.
The market rebounded from negative performance it recorded in the preceding week as strong bargain-hunting activities across tickers with attractive entry points that pushed the All-Share Index higher by 1.5% to 52,973.88 basis points.
Consequent of the gain, market capitalisation surged to N28.845 trillion from N28.417 trillion it opened the week, despite that global market indices was in the red during the week.
Precisely, investors’ interests in NESTLE that yielded 10% rise in its share price, and that of MTN Nigeria that saw 1.5% uptick in share price, spurred the weekly gain.
As a result, the month-to-date (MTD) and year-to-date (YTD) returns advanced to 1.1% and 3.4%, respectively.
Elsewhere, performances across sectors were broadly positive as banking index led with 5.6% rise, followed by 3.6% gain in insurance index while oil & gas and consumer goods indices rose by 3.2% and 3.1% respectively.
Meanwhile, the industrial goods index shed -0.9% in value as only sector in the red zone at the end of the week.
Trading Pattern
Despite the bullish outlook in market value, activity level was low as trade volume and value declined by 35.5% and 0.4% week-on-week in that order.
Specifically, investors traded a total turnover of 1.963 billion shares worth N33.899 billion in 30,827 deals during the week on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 3.029 billion shares valued at N33.626 billion that exchanged hands in the preceding week in 29,505 deals
In terms of traded volume, the financial services industry led the activity chart with 1.463 billion shares valued at N18.028 billion traded in 15,593 deals; thus contributing 74.51% and 53.18% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The conglomerates industry followed with 111.180 million shares worth N371.360 million in 1,590 deals, while the third place was the consumer goods industry, with a turnover of 106.594 million shares worth N2.544 billion in 4,641 deals.
Equities with the highest top three traded volumes were United Bank for Africa Plc, Access Holdings Plc and Zenith Bank Plc.
The trio accounted for 800.611 million shares worth N11.751 billion in 7,351 deals, contributing 40.78% and 34.66% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The ETP segment recorded a total of 16,176 units valued at N5.118 million and traded during the week in 86 deals compared with a total of 2.909 million units valued at N55.710 million transacted previous week in 44 deals.
In the fixed income wing of the NGX, investors traded a total of 12,837 units valued at N12.608 million in 16 deals compared with a total of 126,110 units valued at N130.953 million transacted that exchanged hands the previous week.
Commenting on the data, market experts express optimism that the equities market has upside potential to remain in the green territory in the coming week.
However, they envisage that investors will continue to cherry-pick stocks while paying rapt attention to the outcome of Treasury bills and bonds auctions to gauge the direction of yields in the FI market.
“As a result, we expect cautious trading from domestic investors in the short term,” say Cordros analysts in a note available to BUSINESS METRICS.
“Overall, we believe developments in the macroeconomic landscape and corporate actions will shape the direction of the local bourse in the near term,” the analysts added.
