Stock exchange continues bullish run at 3.76% WoW gain

THE Nigerian equities market on Friday closed the last trading session of the week in green as the benchmark index gained 0.81 per cent to close at 32,715.20 basis points on gains in Banking, Oil & Gas counters, to drive Week-to-Date (WTD) returns up 3.76 per cent.

As with the prior week, foreign and domestic players played down election risk as the Nigerian equities market sustained its bullish run.

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“Evidently, the benchmark index returned 3.76 per cent week-on-week (W-o-W), the largest weekly gain in four weeks, to close at 32,715.20 points. Save for some profit taking on Wednesday, the ASI closed positive in all sessions of the week. Thus, the Month-to-date (MtD) and Year-to-date (YtD) gains increased to 7.06 per cent and 4.09 per cent respectively,” analysts at Cordros Capital observed.

All sector indices on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed positive during the week under review, with the Oil & Gas index leading the pack with 5.94 per cent gain, followed closely by the Consumer Goods at 5.41 per cent, Industrial Goods at 1.62 per cent, Banking at +1.59 per cent and Insurance +1.51 per cent indices respectively.

Meanwhile, activity in the equities market increased as total deals, transaction volumes and Naira votes rose by 40.43 per cent, 29.34 per cent and 4.66 per cent to 26,980 deals, 2.45 billion shares and N28.14 billion respectively.

Cordros Capital analyst expected the Nigerian equities market to close in green territory as Nigeria crosses the political bridge on Saturday. However, with the, postponement of the elections by a week, there are expectations that investors would remain bullish on the back of improved corporate earnings.

However, cautious trading is advised. “We guide investors to cherry pick fundamentally sound stocks in a bid to ride the wave of the market rally, post-polls,” analysts said.