Equities market rebounds with +1.37% WoW

Amid marginal rebound in crude oil prices, given the news that OPEC plus cuts could reach 10 million barrel per day, equities market on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), rebounded by 1.37 per cent Week-on-Week (WoW), resulting in increase of the All Share Index (ASI) to 21,384.03 points.

Given the renewed bullish activity, especially on the banking stocks, most of the sub-sector gauges closed in green: the NSE Banking, the NSE Consumer Goods and the NSE Insurance indices rose by 12.39 per cent, 6.50 per cent and 0.18 per cent respectively to 263.53 points, 334.59 points and 117.98 points respectively.

However, the NSE Industrial and the NSE Oil/Gas indices plummeted by 6.59 per cent and 4.76 per cent to 960.57 points 206.11 points.

Specifically, bargain hunting across MTN Nigeria  (+3.3 per cent), WAPCO (+41.3 per cent) and tier 1 banking tickers drove the market to its first weekly gain for four weeks. The All-Share Index gained 1.4 per cent w/w, to settle at 21,384.03 points. Thus, the Month-To-Date (MtD) return turned positive to +1.34 per cent, while the Year-To-Date (YtD) loss moderated to -20.3 per cent.

Market activity was upbeat during the week under review, as investors scrambled for the cheap banking shares; hence, transaction volumes and Naira votes surged by 59.05 per cent and 76.90 per cent to 2.44 billion shares and N19.93 billion respectively. However, total deals moderated by 0.05 per cent to 18,918 deals.

However, analysts believe that despite the market closing positive this week, risks remained on the horizon, given the rising cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria. More so, the base case is for the FGN to extend the presently instituted lockdown in Lagos, Abuja, and Ogun, by another one week. Thus, investors are advised to trade cautiously, taking positions in fundamentally justified stocks.

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