By Chinwendu Obienyi and Chukwuma Umeorah
Despite mixed sentiments which resulted in profit-taking, trading activity by investors on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) was healthy as the total volume and value of shares grew by 12.7 per cent and 55.2 per cent in one week.
Specifically, a total turnover of 2.187 billion shares worth N50.667 billion in 45,277 deals was traded at the end of trading last week, in contrast to a total of 1.941 billion shares valued at N32.644 billion that exchanged hands in the previous trading week in 35,807 deals.
Although the market had gained 1.5 per cent last week due to renewed interest in banking stocks, however, the equities market could not consolidate the prior week’s gains following pressure from profit-taking activities during the week.
Particularly, sell pressures on Airtel Africa (-10.3 per cent), FBN Holdings (-7.4 per cent) and Transcorp (-10.6 per cent) drove the benchmark index lower by 1.4 per cent to close at 98,233.76 points amid buying interests in MTNN (+2.3 per cent), GTCO (+8.8 per cent) and TRANSCOHOT (+5.6 per cent).
Similarly, market capitalisation fell to N55.561 trillion from N56.323 trillion, representing a loss of N762 billion in one week. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns settled at -1.4 per cent and +31.4 per cent, indicating a generally bullish trend for the year so far.
Sectoral performances were mostly negative, as the Consumer Goods (-1.2 per cent), Insurance (-1.0 per cent), Oil and Gas (-0.3 per cent) and Banking (-0.1 per cent) indices declined, while only the Industrial Goods (+0.1 per cent) index gained.
The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.428 billion shares valued at N28.850 billion traded in 24,418 deals; thus contributing 65.29 per cent and 56.94 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Consumer Goods Industry followed with 385.661 million shares worth N9.919 billion in 5,826 deals while the Conglomerates Industry recorded a turnover of 133.697 million shares worth N1.715 billion in 3,271 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely United Bank for Africa Plc, Nigerian Breweries Plc and Access Holdings Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 1.020 billion shares worth N23.631 billion in 9,587 deals, contributing 46.63 per cent and 46.64 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Reacting to the performance of the market, analysts noted that sentiments is expected to remain bearish in the new trading week. They noted that there might be some opportunities for bargain-hunting activities, particularly in the banking sector, given the recent bearish trend.
“Given the recent trading pattern in the local stock market, we expect the overall market sentiment to remain bearish in the coming week especially with no significant drivers to buoy investors’ interest. Nevertheless, we do not rule out the potential for bargain-hunting activities to emerge quietly, particularly for the banks, owing to the opportunities presented by the recent bearish trend”, analysts at Cordros Research said.
