This week, as the Nigerian capital market continued to grow for a third straight week, there was persistent purchasing demand ahead of additional scorecards. The rise in stocks caused the market capitalization and all-share index to rise by 0.5% and N145 Billion, respectively, to close at 55,794.51 points and N30.395 Trillion.
Except for NGX Main Board, NGX CG, NGX Banking, NGX Pension, NGX AFR Bank Value, NGX AFR Div. Yield, NGX MERI Growth, NGX MERI Value, NGX Consumer Goods, and NGX Oil and Gas indices, which declined by 0.09 percent, 0.74 percent, 1.82 percent, 0.57 percent, 2.04 percent, 0.57 percent, 0.88 percent, 1.91 percent, 0. The NGX ASeM index ended unchanged.
Notwithstanding political unpredictability in the nation, Dangote Cement (+3.6%), MTNN (+1.3%), and UBN (+2.3%) saw the most buying interest, which helped to prolong the bullish trend.
Experts attributed the success to investors’ search for bargains and positioned themselves in advance of enhanced full-year profits and dividend announcements.
Cordros Capital said: “We expect market performance to be dominated by the bulls in the week ahead; as we expect investors to take positions in stocks with attractive dividend yields.
“However, we envisage an undulating pattern will emerge as intermittent profit-taking activities will likely persist.
“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.”
Afrinvest said: “Despite the downbeat investor sentiment, we expect the market to trend upwards as investors continue to react to corporate earnings results.”
Chief Research Officer of Investdata Consulting, Ambrose Omodion, said: “We expect mixed sentiments and correction, just as investors’ position for dividend declared in expectation of more financials.
“Market players should target dividend-paying companies and defensive stocks to protect their portfolios ahead of the governorship election and post-dividend adjustment.
“As such, investors should take advantage of price correction. Also looking at the trends and events across the globe and domestically.”
A further breakdown of last week’s activities revealed that investors on the exchange floor transacted one billion shares worth N20 Billion in 18,650 deals, as opposed to the 1.9 Billion shares worth N18.4 Billion that were transacted in 20,311 deals the week before.
With 414.4 Million shares worth N5.6 Billion exchanged in 8,136 deals, the financial services sector dominated the activity chart in terms of volume, accounting for 40.5% of the overall amount of stock turnover.
With 307.9 Million shares worth N479.5 Million in 1,122 sales, the conglomerate sector came in second. With a turnover of 104.2 Million shares worth N10.4 Billion in 1,334 deals, the industrial products sector came in third.
Transnational Corporation Plc, Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc, and BUA Cement Plc, the top three stocks in terms of volume traded, accounted for 447.8 Million shares valued at N9.6 Billion in 2,018 deals, or 43.76 percent of the total volume and value of shares traded.
Comparatively, on March 3, 2023, a total of 30,547 units for N7.299 Million were transacted in 50 trades, while 11,382 units of exchange-traded products worth N1.9 Million were traded in 74 deals.
A total of 39,151 units worth N37.062 Million were traded last week in 17 deals, as opposed to 54,802 units worth N55.699 Million that were traded last week in 14 deals.
Twenty-two stocks experienced a decline in value over the week compared to fifty-three and a half stocks. A total of 94 stocks closed in the green, with 41 declining and 21 remaining unchanged.
