SAT, 19 DEC, 2020-theGBJournal- In line with expectations, the profit-taking activities were short-lived as the bulls returned strongly to the equities market.
The All-Share Index increased by 7.5% w/w, the largest weekly gain in five weeks, and closed at 36,804.75 points, the highest level since 31 July 2018. Notably, foreign investor interest in AIRTELAFRI (+21.0%), and bargain hunting in DANGCEM (+14.5%) and MTNN (+3.2%), following recent selloffs, were the primary drivers of the strong performance.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns increased to 5.0% and 37.1%, respectively. Performance across sectors was positive with the Insurance (+13.4%) index topping the gainers, followed by the Industrial Goods (+7.7%), Banking (+5.1%), Consumer Goods (+3.1%) and Oil & Gas (+1.3%) indices.
A total turnover of 1.893 billion shares worth N17.647 billion in 20,660 deals were traded this week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 2.265 billion shares valued at N20.990 billion that exchanged hands last week in 23,722 deals.
The Financial Services industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.489 billion shares valued at N8.385 billion traded in 10,834 deals; thus contributing 78.65% and 47.52% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively. The Consumer Goods Industry followed with 106.986 million shares worth N2.360 billion in 3,447 deals. The third place was Services Industry, with a turnover of 74.754 million shares worth N191.833 million in 448 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely Jaiz Bank Plc, FBN Holdings Plc and Niger Insurance Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 761.866 million shares worth N1.468 billion in 1,395 deals, contributing 40.25% and 8.32% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Meanwhile, Global stocks remained upbeat in the week as investors were broadly optimistic about a favourable fiscal stimulus deal as well as vaccine developments.
Consequently, US (DJIA: +0.9%; S&P: +1.6%) stocks were set to close the week higher. Likewise, in Europe, fresh optimism surrounding the impending Brexit deal, the EU’s plan to approve its first coronavirus vaccine before the yuletide, as well as the Eurozone’s impressive PMI numbers put the STOXX Europe (+1.8%) and FTSE 100 (+0.1%) on track for a weekly gain.
Asian (Nikkei 225: +0.4%; SSE: +1.4%) markets ended the week higher mirroring the trend on Wall Street, while Emerging (MSCI EM: +1.2%) and Frontier (MSCI FM: +0.9%) market stocks were on track to close higher following gains in China (+1.4%) and Vietnam (+2.2%), respectively.
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