Despite the current growth in the local marketplace, equities investors in Nigeria’s stock market made a windfall. The Nigerian Exchange (NGX)’s entire market capitalization increased by N11.6 trillion after five days of trade, which ended on Friday.
The local market closed the week on a high note, with the All-share index rising 8.3% to 102,401.88 points. The spike increased the stock market’s year-to-date return to 36.95 percent. As a consequence, market capitalization climbed by ₦4.3 trillion. According to stockbrokers, investors capitalized on the upside potential and price fluctuations in DANGCEM, SEPLAT, BUACEM, BUAFOODS, and ETERNA.
“… Buying momentum hit some stocks as investors’ eager sought dividend paying stocks took a boisterous turn across major sectors of the market in anticipation for the earnings scorecard”, Cowry Asset Limited said in a note. Despite the large weekly gain, activity level dampened as average volume and value traded declined by 42.4% and 25.6% to 519.4 million units and ₦11.6 billion respectively last week.
The most traded stocks by volume were TRANSCORP (273.5 million units), UBA (178.8 million units), and ACCESSCORP (128.9 million units), while UBA (₦5.4 billion), DANGSUGAR (₦5.1 billion), and TRANSCORP (₦4.7 billion) led in terms of value.
Stockbrokers said that the banking and insurance indices fell 1.63% and 4.10% week on week, respectively, due to price reductions in WEMABANK, GTCO, ROYALEX, and CONHALLPLC. In contrast, the Industrial index excelled, rising 23.20% week on week, boosted by price rises and purchase activity in DANGCEM and BUACEM.
This was trailed by the positive performances seen in Oil & Gas, and Consumer Goods Indexes which closed the week on a bullish note, rising by 11.57% and 5.29% respectively. The surge was fuelled by positive price movements in SEPLAT, JAPAULGOLD, ETERNA, BUAFOODS, NASCON and GEREGU.
Total traded volume declined by 42.44% to 2.98 billion units, while the number of trades dipped by 13.99% to 67,962 deals. The weekly traded value also showed lacklustre movement, dropping by 25.61% to N57.87 billion.
Top gainers include DANGCEM (+28.8%), BUACEMENT (+21.0%), SEPLAT (+21.0%) and ETERNA (+19.6%) TRIPPLEG (+32.2%), and SUNUASSU (+25.0%) with support from BUAFOODS (+13.3%), NASCON (+8.5%) and MTNN (+1.3%).
On the flip side, the Insurance and Banking indices declined 4.1% and 1.6% week on week respectively due to selling pressure on CORNERST (-15.5%), AIICO (-11.3%), UNITYBNK (-16.6%) and JAIZBANK (-15.1%). Other losers include VERITASK (-23.4%), CADBURY (-20.9%) and DEACAP (-19.2%), ROYALEX (-22%), TIP (-22%), and CADBURY (-21%).
Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth weakened to -0.3x from previous weeks’ 1.1x as 34 stocks gained, 54 lost and 64 closed flat. Overall, the total market capitalisation of listed equities improved further by 8.32%, adding N4.3 trillion to close at N56.04 trillion. NGX’s year-to-date return strengthened to 36.95%.
