The market opened for four trading days last week as the Federal Government declared Friday, 1st May, 2020, a public holiday to mark the 2020 Workers’ Day celebration. Despite the one-day break, the domestic bourse maintained an uptrend last week, as gains in MTNN (+7.7percent), NESTLE (+1.1percent), and Tier 1 banks’ stocks improved the market’s performance on the volume and value of transactions as bulls held sway in most days of the week.
During the week, a total turnover of 1.012 billion shares worth N9.892 billion in 17,023 deals were traded last week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 1.195 billion shares valued at N13.979 billion that exchanged hands last week in 20,591 deals. Accordingly, the MTD return increased to +8.1percent, and YTD loss moderated to -14.2percent.
Sectoral performance last week was positive, as gains in the Banking (+3.8percent), Oil & Gas (+1.7percent) and Insurance (+1.3percent) indices covered for the losses recorded in the Consumer Goods (-1.4percent) and Industrial Goods (-0.5percent) indices. ADVERTISEMENT Dear valued readers, subscribe to the Daily Trust e-paper to continue enjoying our diet of authoritative news.
Kindly subscribe here The Financial Services industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 809.957 million shares valued at N5.666 billion traded in 9,533 deals; thus contributing 80.06percent and 57.28 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Industrial Goods industry followed with 47.884 million shares worth N1.681 billion in 1,920 deals. The third place was the Conglomerates industry, with a turnover of 46.627 million shares worth N86.349 million in 550 deals. Trading in the Top Three Equities namely, FBN Holdings Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc and Access Bank Plc. (measured by volume) accounted for 414.588 million shares worth N2.290 billion in 3,189 deals, contributing 40.98percent and 23.15percent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The NSE All-Share Index and Market Capitalization both appreciated by 1.87percent to close the week at 23,021.01 and N11.997 trillion respectively. All other indices finished higher with the exception of NSE Meri Growth, NSE Consumer Goods and NSE Industrial Goods, which depreciated by 0.88percent, 1.42percent and 0.47percent respectively while the NSE ASeM index closed flat).
Twenty-eight (28) equities appreciated in price during the week, higher than twenty-five (25) equities in the previous week. Twenty (20) equities depreciated in price, lower than thirty-three (33) equities in the previous week, while One hundred and fifteen (115) equities remained unchanged, higher than one hundred and five (105) equities recorded in the preceding week. An analyst at Cordros Securities said: “As risks remain on the horizon, following the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Nigeria and as economic fundamentals remain weak, we continue to advise investors to trade cautiously and seek only fundamentally justified stocks.”
