THE Nigerian equities market saw a modest recovery last week as the All-Share Index (ASI) posted a weekly gain of 0.09 percent to close at 97,606.63 basis points, signalling a renewed bullish sentiment after previous week’s profit-taking activities.
The market rebound was driven by selective buying across sectors, as investors responded to attractive entry points in key mid and large-cap stocks.
In the same manner, the market capitalisation posted marginal increase of 0.09 percent week on week to N56.09 trillion resulting in a N49.53 billion weekly gain for equity investors even as the year-to-date return of the index advanced to 30.54 percent.
Despite starting the week on a positive note with gains on Monday, the index experienced consecutive losses from Tuesday to Thursday. However, a strong recovery on Friday helped offset most of these declines.
Market momentum was relatively weak in the face of higher traded volumes this week, fuelled by rebalancing activities across small, mid, and large-cap stocks.
The NGX Premium Index gained 0.75 percent over the week, though individual stocks within the index showed mixed results. Meanwhile, the NGX 30 and NGX Main Board Index recorded gains of 0.61 percent and a slight dip of 0.28 percent, respectively.
NGX Oil and Gas Index led sectoral performance with a 1.57 percent rise, driven by a weekly five percent increase in Seplat Energy shares.
Additionally, the NGX Banking and NGX Insurance indices posted gains of 0.47 percent and 0.08 percent, while the Consumer Goods and Industrial Goods indices faced slight declines of 1.25 percent and 0.13 percent..
According to the NGX, 29 equities appreciated in price during the week under review lower 45 equities in the previous week.
52 equities depreciated in price higher than 33 in the previous week, while 70 equities remained unchanged, lower than 73 recorded in the previous week.
The NGX market report showed that total turnover of 2.966 billion shares worth N31.508 billion in 42,482 deals was traded this week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 2.872 billion shares valued at N132.811 billion that exchanged hands last week in 39,867 deals.
The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.485 billion shares valued at N17.965 billion traded in 19,613 deals; thus contributing 50.05 percent and 57.02 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Services Industry followed with 1.108 billion shares worth N775.258 million in 2,675 deals. Third place was the Agriculture Industry, with a turnover of 93.904 million shares worth N1.250 billion in 2,517 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely Tantalizer Plc, Coronation Insurance Plc and Fidelity Bank Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 1.625 billion shares worth N3.908 billion in 1,814 deals, contributing 54.80% and 12.40% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Analysts at Cowry Asset Management noted that the modest gains recorded in the trading week reflected investor confidence slowly returning to the market, with expectations of further rebounds supported by anticipated earnings releases and the impact of government reforms on economic growth.
“Thus, we anticipate the currently trend of mild gains to continue on the local bourse, buoyed by the release of Q3 earnings report by majorly the early filers. Meanwhile, we continue to advise investors to focus on fundamentally sound stocks.”
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