Nigeria’s equity market closed the week on a strong note as its index appreciated by 2.09 per cent Week-on-Week following buying sentiments in highly capitalised stocks.
Despite analysts’ forecast that the Nigerian stock market will continue to experience sell pressure amongst bellwethers, the volume of transactions, increased by 72 per cent at the start of the new trading week due to gains in the shares of Seplat, Nestle and Dangote Cement.
Similarly, the All Share Index (ASI) rose by 0.73 per cent to close at 26,609.34 points, leading to a slight improvement in YTD loss at -15.3 per cent. Furthermore, market capitalisation improved by N93 billon to settle at N12.846 trillion.
The last day of trading in 2019, saw the equities market posting a bullish performance as buying interest in Seplat, Stanbic and Wapco pulled the All-Share Index (ASI) higher by 0.87 per cent to close at 26,842.07 points.
Similarly, the market Year-to-Date (YtD) return moderated to -14.6 per cent while market capitalisation increased by N112.4 billion to N12.958 trillion.
The Federal Government declared Wednesday January 1, 2020 a public holiday to mark the New Year celebrations.
Thursday’s session saw the equities market starting the year positive as buying interest in MTNN, FBN Holdings and Dangote Sugar pulled the ASI up by 0.1 per cent to 26,867.79 points.
Consequently, market capitalisation gained N12.4 billion to close at N12.970 trillion.
Friday’s session saw the benchmark index rising by 0.38 per cent to close at 26,968.79 points while market capitalisation closed at N13.019 trillion.
This means that investors have gained over N267 billion in four trading sessions.
All other indices finished higher with the exception of NSE ASeM Index, which closed flat while Year-to-Date (YTD) returns stood at 0.47 per cent.
Reacting to the development, Cordros Capital in their assessment of the market for 2019, noted that “its base case for equities posits muted stock market performance for the year.
“Fundamentals are not strong enough to drive a natural correction in the equities market, however, recent policy directives from the CBN might offer some respite to the domestic bourse in the absence of much needed market friendly reforms”.
Also speaking, Professor of Economics, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Prof Sheriffdeen Tella, said that expansion of the economy and improvement in capacity utilisation and productivity would force manufacturing firms to seek expansion fund from the capital market.
The economist called for collaboration between Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and CBN to review listing requirements and develop new capital market instruments to attract unlisted firms to improve activities on the Exchange.
He added that SEC needed to see how to take advantage of the new surge in financial integration with adoption of ECO currency to attract participants from West African sub-region.
A total turnover of 2.309 billion shares worth N21.675 billion in 14,906 deals were traded this week by investors on the floor of the Exchange in contrast to a total of 735.702 million shares valued at N7.132 billion that exchanged hands last week in 7,138 deals.
The financial services industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.924 billion shares valued at N10.148 billion traded in 9,287 deals; thus contributing 83.31 per cent and 46.82 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The conglomerates industry followed with 188.538 million shares worth N284.531 million in 530 deals while the Industrial Goods recorded a turnover of 56.007 million shares worth N4.793 billion in 1,304 deals.
Trading in the Top Three Equities namely: Omoluabi Mortgage Bank Plc, Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc and Zenith Bank Plc; (measured by volume) accounted for 1.131 billion shares worth N3.600 billion in 2,249 deals, contributing 48.98 per cent and 16.61 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Forty-four equities appreciated in price during the week, higher than 31 equities in the previous week. Twenty-four equities depreciated in price, higher than 17 equities in the previous week, while 97 equities remained unchanged, lower than one 117 equities recorded in the preceding week.