Stories by Chinwendu Obienyi
Investors trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) gained approximately N98 billion in three consecutive trading sessions last week.
This came after bargain hunting in banking stocks notably GT Bank, Zenith Bank, Access Bank and UBA which drove performance northwards between Tuesday and Thursday, with the market capitalisation surging N98 billion to close at N11.558 trillion from Monday’s figure of N11.460 trillion.
The market capitalisation or the value of listed equities which opened Monday, January 21, 2018 at N11.562 trillion, fell N102 billion with the Year-to-Date (Ytd) worsening by -2.2 per cent.
The bears had dominated transactions on the Nigerian bourse for much of Tuesday’s (January 22, 2018)session, before investors’ late interest in GT Bank and Zenith Bank kept the market largely afloat, with the All-Share Index (ASI) rising marginally, by 0.01 per cent, while market capitalisation increased by N2 billion.
Investors’ appetite for banking stocks continued growing even as the ASI maintained a positive performance for the third consecutive day (January 24, 2018) advancing 0.36 per cent to settle at 30,989.60 points.
Similarly, market capitalisation increased by N44 billion to close at the session at N11.558 trillion, thus representing a gain of over N98 billion.
As a result, Ytd losses improved to -1.4 per cent.
However, activity level was mixed as value of stocks traded rose by 6 per cent to N3.14 billion while volume of stocks traded fell by 28.7 per cent to 268.25 million units, in 3,756 deals.
At the sound of the closing gong, performance was bullish as 4 of 5 indices advanced. The Insurance index gained 1.1 per cent due to price appreciation in Mansard (+7.53 per cent) while the Banking index trailed, rising by 0.7 per cent on the back of gains in ACCESS (+6.19 per cent).
Furthermore, the Oil and Gas index posted a similar performance, up 0.7 per cent following bargain hunting in OANDO (+1.06 per cent) while the Consumer Goods index closed flattish propped by gains in Honeywell Flour (+4.9 per cent).
On the other hand, the Industrial Goods index performed negatively, down 1.0 per cent due to losses in CCNN (-4.0 per cent). Compared with previous trading sessions, investors sentiment weakened as 27 stocks appreciated in value while 20 others depreciated.
Learn Africa topped the gainers’ chart with 9.92 per cent to close at N1.33, Ikeja Hotel was next with a 9.87 per cent gain to close at N1.67, Veritaskap inched 9.09 per cent to close at 0.24 kobo, Mansard gained 7.53 per cent to close at N2 while Royal Exchange increased by 6.90 per cent to close at 0.31 kobo per share.
On the flipside, Medview airline topped the losers’ chart with 9.76 per cent to close at N1.85 per share. Resort Savings and loans continued to perform woefully, dipping by 9.09 per cent to close at 0.20 kobo, Union Bank of Nigeria (UBN) followed with 8.89 per cent to close at N6.15, Linkage Assurance fell by 8.82 per cent to close at 0.62 kobo while Fidson lost 5.05 per cent to close at N4.70.
Zenith Bank was the toast of investors, selling 36.47 million shares valued at N806.50, UBA traded 31.64 million shares worth N232.34 million while FBN Holdings sold 28.99 million shares valued at N217.37 million.
Reacting to this, analysts at Afrinvest in an emailed response to Daily Sun said, “Despite the positive performance, we maintain our bearish outlook for the market in the near-term and advise cautious investing for the market till the elections are concluded.
We recommend that investors take position in cheap assets with sound fundamentals in order to take advantage of the anticipated market rally post-election.”