Due to some reasonable stock-buying activity on listed businesses, the market capitalization of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) increased by roughly N93 billion. Strong competition between the bulls and bears throughout the five trading sessions led to an 18 basis point weekly increase in the market index.
The stock market’s year-to-date return then increased to 27.46%, still above Nigeria’s June 2023 inflation figure of 22.79%. According to market statistics, the Nigerian Exchange All-Share Index (NGXASI) increased slightly on Friday to 65,325.37. Due to the uncertain state of the economy, equity investors made early withdrawals from the local stock exchange.
However, Futureview Financial Services Limited reported to investors that the market recovered its footing in the latter half of the week, helped by increased buying activity. It was the comeback that drove the market index to 65,325.37 points.
Futureview stock dealers reported that despite market swings, performance last week showed a tiny 0.20% improvement when compared to the closing point of 65,198.08 points the week before.
Investors traded a total of 1.741 billion shares worth N25.087 billion in 30,652 transactions last week, compared to 2.575 billion shares worth N29.615 billion that changed hands in 37,713 transactions previous week.
With 1.244 billion shares worth N12.616 billion moved in 13,398 deals, the Financial Services Industry dominated the activity chart in terms of volume, contributing 71.43% and 50.29%, respectively, to the overall stock turnover volume and value.
Following with 133.034 million shares worth N575.673 million, the Conglomerates Industry followed in with 1,572 deals. The third place was the ICT Industry, with a turnover of 87.649 million shares worth N2.292 billion in 2,404 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc, FBN Holdings Plc, and Universal Insurance Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 518.847 million shares worth N3.917 billion in 1,901 deals, contributing 29.80% and 15.61% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Specifically, the equities market benefitted from the 1.05% price increase in Telco large-cap MTNN as well as price improvements in mid-cap —TRANSCORP (+8.36%), DANGSUGAR (+1.85%), and ETI (+1.94%). CardinalStone Securities Limited told investors in an update that these gains proved more than enough to offset losses in banking pair — UBA (-1.37%) and ACCESSCORP (-0.86%) on Friday’s close.
Market data showed that GUINEAINS gained 50.00% last week, CHELLARAM rose by +29.79% and SUNUASSUR spiked by 23.66% week on week. Market analysts said these gains were sufficient to offset losses in JOHNHOLT (-18.37%), DANGSUGAR (-12.00%, and RTBRISCOE.
Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) settled at 27.46%, while the market capitalization gained N92.7 million week on week to close at N35.57 trillion. For sectoral buckets, Insurance (+0.37%) and Banking (+0.01%) sectors closed positively on the back of gains in CORNEST (+9.26%) and ETI (+1.94%), respectively.
On the flip side, losses in WAPCO (-0.89%) led to the 5bps decline in the Industrial Goods sector. The Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas sectors closed flat.
