SAT, MAY 27 2023-theGBJournal |Nigerian equities market closed the week higher Friday as the NGX Exchange recovered losses from the previous session, pushing the All-Share Index higher by 1.5% w/w to 52,973.88 points. The Index closed 0.29% after Friday’s trading.
All other indices finished higher with the exception of NGX Industrial Goods and NGX Growth which depreciated by 0.70% and 1.33% respectively while the NGX ASeM and NGX Sovereign Bond indices closed flat.
Trading in the top three equities namely United Bank for Africa Plc, Access Holdings Plc and Zenith Bank Plc, (measured by volume) accounted for 800.611 million shares worth N11.751 billion in 7,351 deals, contributing 40.78% and 34.66% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The market’s performance was bolstered by renewed investor interest in MTNN (+0.56%), ZENITHBANK (+0.93%) and GEREGU (+1.64%).
Subsequently, having gained in four (4) out of five (5) trading sessions this week, the ASI closed 1.51% higher w/w.
During the week, positive performances in MTNN (+1.53% w/w), NESTLE (+9.98% w/w) and ZENITHBANK (+3.85% w/w) drove the market’s performance, outweighing losses in BUACEMENT (-2.22% w/w), GEREGU (-0.36% w/w) and ETI (-2.44% w/w) .
Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 3.36%, while the market capitalization gained N427.95bn w/w to close at N28.84trn.
Analysis of Friday’s market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 16.47%.
A total of 461.78m shares valued at N7.67bn were exchanged in 6,520 deals Friday. UBA (+6.29%) led the volume chart with 59.41m units traded while MTNN (+0.56%) led the value chart in deals worth N1.55bn.
At the end of the week, a total turnover of 1.963 billion shares worth N33.899 billion in 30,827 deals was traded by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 3.029 billion shares valued at N33.626 billion that exchanged hands last week in 29,505 deals.
Market breadth closed positive at a 5.29-to-1 ratio with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones.
NASCON (+10.00%) led thirty-six (36) others on the leader’s log while MBENEFIT (-5.56%) topped six (6) others on the laggard’s table.
Meanwhile, the Global stock markets were broadly bearish this week as a stalemate in US debt-ceiling negotiations weighed on sentiments.
As of the time of writing, US equities (DJIA: -2.0%; S&P 500: -1.0%) were on course to close lower following concerns about the US government edging closer to a possible default on its debt.
Likewise, sentiments across European equities (STOXX Europe: -2.2%; FTSE 100: -1.8%) were dampened by pullbacks from stocks of luxury goods companies (i.e Prada, Hermes and Louis Vuition) and uncertainty around the US debt ceiling.
In Asia, Chinese equities (SSE: -2.2%) dipped as China’s sluggish recovery weakened sentiments.
Meanwhile, Japanese equities (Nikkei 225: +0.4%) were supported by a rally in tech stocks and other export-oriented shares amid the weakening of the yen.
Conversely, the Emerging (MSCI EM: -1.4%) and Frontier (MSCI FM: -0.8%) market indices mirrored the downbeat mood across global stocks consequent upon losses in China (-2.2%) and Vietnam (-0.1%), respectively.
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