Despite the truncated trading week owing to two-day public holidays, the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) stock market paused its profit-taking streak as Airtel Africa Plc climbed 10%, or N173.20, to finish at N1905.40 per share.
Airtel Africa’s market capitalization increased by around N650.9 billion, bringing the whole market capitalization to N28.185 trillion when the market began for trading on Wednesday, up from N27.803 trillion when it closed for trading on Friday.
Last week’s stock market performance was delayed by declines in Dangote Cement Plc, Access Holdings, United Bank for Africa Plc, and Lafarge Africa Plc. In addition, the NGX All-Share Index increased by 1.3 percent, or 657.71 basis points, week on week (WoW) to 52,215.12 basis points.
As a result, the stock market’s month-to-date (MtD) and year-to-date (YtD) gains ended the month at 0.8 percent and 22.2 percent, respectively. However, activity levels were lower than the previous week, with trade volume and value falling by 38.7 percent and 27.5 percent, respectively, week on week.
According to the NGX weekly report, investors on the exchange traded 504.322 million shares worth N7.517 billion in 12,393 transactions last week, compared to 822.404 million shares worth N10.366 billion in 20,643 transactions the previous week.
According to the report, the financial services industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 270.549 million shares valued at N2.940 billion traded in 5,730 deals; thus contributing 53.65 percent and 39.11 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value, respectively.
The sectoral performance on the NGX revealed that the Industrial Goods index dropped by 3.4 percent, the Insurance index was down by 1.9 percent, the Banking index depreciated by 0.5 percent, and the Consumer Goods index dipped by 0.3 percent, while the Oil and Gas index closed flat.
The report stated that a total of 2,414 units valued at N962,254 were traded last week in 10 deals compared with a total of 5,099 units valued at N267,772.87 transacted in the prior week’s 17 deals.
Analysts at Cordros Securities stated that, “We expect investors to trade cautiously in the week ahead as they anticipate the H1-22 earnings season.”
“Notwithstanding, we reiterate the need for positioning in only fundamentally sound stocks as the weak macro environment remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings.”
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