SAT. 11 FEB, 2023-theGBJournal| In the last trading session of the week, the domestic bourse reversed some of the week’s gains, bringing the All-Share Index down by 6bps to close at 54,327.30 points.
Selloffs in telco heavyweight, MTNN (-0.82%) drove the market’s overall performance. Having gained in two of five trading sessions this week, the ASI closed 0.21% higher w/w, extending gains for the fifth consecutive week.
A total turnover of 944.293 million shares worth N22.710 billion in 18,615 deals was traded this week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 3.789 billion shares valued at N27.500 billion that exchanged hands last week in 20,333 deals, according to the NGX Exchange data.
Trading in the top three equities namely Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc, Universal Insurance Plc and Transnational Corporation Plc. (measured by volume) accounted for 269.288 million shares worth N2.999 billion in 1,845 deals, contributing 28.52% and 13.21% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Over the course of the week, DANGCEM (+1.16% w/w), MTNN (+1.68% w/w) and WAPCO (+1.39% w/w) led the market’s gains. On the flip side, NB (-3.11% w/w), FBNH (-0.84% w/w) and ACCESSCORP (-1.09% w/w) contributed to roil the overall market. Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) rose to 6.00%, while the market capitalization gained N62.21bn w/w to close at N29.59trn.
Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 75.52%. A total of 175.66m shares valued at N5.33bn were exchanged in 3,563 deals. FBNH (+0.42%) led the volume chart with 30.22m shares traded while AIRTELAFRI (+0.00%) led the value chart in deals worth N5.29bn.
Market breadth closed negative at a 1.89-to-1 ratio, with declining issues outnumbering advancing ones. SOVRENINS (-9.09%) topped sixteen (16) others on the laggard’s log, while CONOIL (+9.95%) led eight (8) others on the leader’s table.
Meanwhile, Global equities headed for the first weekly retreat in two weeks amid renewed risk-off sentiments by investors, underpinned by hawkish comments by top central bank policymakers and heightened recessionary fears.
US stocks (DJIA: -0.7%; S&P: -1.3%) slid after comments from Federal Reserve officials on more interest rate hikes being on the cards, and significant sell-offs of Alphabet Inc’s stock after its new AI chatbot ‘Bard’ delivered an incorrect answer in an online advertisement.
In contrast, European equities (STOXX 600: +0.3%; FTSE 100: +0.1%) eked out a positive performance as cooling inflation in Germany, and a slew of upbeat earnings outweighed fears about more interest rate increases.
Elsewhere, Asian equities were mixed, with the hawkish global central bank comments dampening sentiments. Specifically, Chinese stocks (SSE: -0.1%) were dragged by the general global recessionary fears and a weaker-than-expected Chinese inflation data.
Whereas the slightly positive performance in Japan (Nikkei 225: +0.6%) was influenced by the fall in Japan’s producer inflation (-100bps y/y to 9.5%). Emerging markets (MSCI EM: -1.4%) and Frontier markets (MSCI FM: -0.5%) mirrored the theme in the global market, as losses in China (-0.1%) and Vietnam (-2.1%) weighed down the respective indices.
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