SAT, JULY 01 2023-theGBJournal |Equities rose Friday and all major indices continued their blistering run to cap off a strong end to the first half of the year.
The NGX All-Share Index and Market Capitalization gained 2.98% to close the week at 60,968.27 and N33.198 trillion respectively, biggest gains since since May 2008.
Tech heavy weigth and Tier-1 banking stocks responsible for a sizeable chunk of this week’s market gains rose Friday. Africa’s big mobile telcos AIRTELAFRI and MTNN jumped +6.3% and +3.0% respectively.
Trading in the top three equities namely Access Holdings Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc and Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 844.596 million shares worth N16.302 billion in 5,493 deals, contributing 36.49% and 39.24% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Thus, the benchmark index closed higher by 2.9% w/w, with the MTD and YTD gains jumping to 9.3% and 18.9%, respectively.
However, following the shorter trading week, activity levels were weaker than in the prior week, with volume and value traded declining by 31.6% w/w and 1.5% w/w, respectively. Performance across sectors was broadly positive, as all our coverage indices – Banking (+7.8%), Oil and Gas (+4.6%), Insurance (+1.9%), Consumer Goods (+1.1%), and Industrial Goods (+0.6%) indices – closed in the green.
Meanwhile, global stocks closed higher this week as positive economic readings calmed investors’ fears about a looming recession prompted by aggressive interest rate hikes.
US equities (DJIA: +1.2%; S&P 500: +1.1%) rebounded from last week’s rout after the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test showed that the big banks have enough capital to weather a severe economic drop. Sentiments were further supported by upbeat GDP data, which defied recession woes.
In the same vein, European equities (STOXX Europe: +0.1%; FTSE 100: +0.6%) were set to close higher, as lower-than-expected eurozone inflation data spurred hopes of less aggressive rate hikes from the European Central Bank (ECB).
Likewise, Asian markets posted positive performances as the Nikkei 225 (+1.2%) and SSE (+0.1%) advanced, mirroring the positive sentiments on Wall Street.
Elsewhere, the Emerging (MSCI EM: -0.5%) market index declined due to losses in Taiwan (-1.7%), while the Frontier (MSCI FM: +0.8%) market index posted gains following bullish sentiments in Morrocco (+0.4%).
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