By Chinwendu Obienyi
Despite profit taking dominating transactions at Nigeria’s stock market, trading volumes and value were significantly high as investors traded 1.713 billion shares valued at N30.76 billion in 24,767 deals at the close of trading activities for the week.
This is in contrast to a total of 1.331 billion shares valued at N22.7 billion that exchanged hands in the previous week in 27,822 deals.
This came as the bulls and the bears contested for superiority on the trading floor of the domestic bourse and this resulted the NGX All-Share Index (ASI) shedding 0.13 per cent week-on-week (w/w) to close at 47,140.48 points while market capitalization fell to N25.406 trillion from an opening value of N25.436 trillion.
This meant that investors lost N30 billion in one week and this was caused by profit-taking in Seplat (-5.9 per cent), GTCO (-1.5 per cent), Access Bank (-1.4 per cent), Airtel Africa (-0.9 per cent) and Dangote Cement (-0.5 per cent).
However, all other indices finished higher with the exception of NGX Premium, NGX Banking, NGX AFR Bank value, NGX Oil & Gas and NGX Industrial Goods which depreciated by 0.29 per cent, 0.74 per cent, 0.86 per cent, 3.45 per cent, and 0.32 per cent respectively while the NGX Main Board, NGX Asem, NGX Growth and NGX Sovereign Bond Indices closed flat.
Commenting on the market’s weekly performance, analysts at Cordros Research believe that the market will be flooded with corporate earnings this week as more companies publish their audited 2021 full year numbers, accompanied by dividend declarations.
“We believe this would provide a catalyst for buying activities even as risk-averse investors are likely to remain cautious due to medium-term expectations of an uptick in fixed income yields. Overall, we advise investors to seek trading opportunities in only fundamentally justified stocks as the weak macro story remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings”, they said.
Meanwhile, the Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.064 billion shares valued at N12.201 billion traded in 11,708 deals; thus contributing 62.14 per cent and 39.66 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Consumer Goods Industry followed with 156.077 million shares worth N5.004 billion in 4,877 deals while the Conglomerates Industry, with a turnover of 113.554 million shares worth N309.833 million in 1,062 deals.