SAT, MAY 20 2023-theGBJournal |In the last trading session of the week, Friday, Nigerian equities staged a rebound, recouping the prior session loss as the benchmark index closed 0.15% stronger to settle at 52,187.93 points.
All other indices finished higher with the exception of NGX Main Board, NGX 30, NGX Oil & Gas, NGX Lotus II, NGX Industrial Goods, and NGX Growth which depreciated by 0.64%, 0.09%, 1.67%, 0.66%, 0.03% and 0.32% respectively while the NGX ASeM and NGX Sovereign Bond indices closed flat.
Trading in the top three equities namely Fidelity Bank Plc, Access Holdings Plc and Transnational Corporation Plc, (measured by volume) accounted for 1.328 billion shares worth N8.159 billion in 5,286 deals, contributing 43.84% and 24.26% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The market’s performance was bolstered by investor interests in ZENITHBANK (+4.00%), GTCO (+1.53%) and SEPLAT (+1.20%). Having gained in four out of five trading sessions this week, the ASI closed 0.05% lower w/w, extending losses for the second consecutive week.
Over the course of the week, AIRTELAFRI (-6.00% w/w), STANBIC (-0.27% w/w) and WAPCO (-0.81% w/w) were the major drivers of the week’s loss outweighing gains in ZENITHBANK (+8.33% w/w), GEREGU (+4.92% w/w), and GTCO (+9.69% w/w).
As a result, the ASI year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 1.83%, while the market capitalization shed N14.53bn w/w to close at N28.42trn.
Analysis of Friday’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 59.21%.
A total of 810.77m shares valued at N8.20bn were exchanged in 5,313 deals. FIDELITYBK (-0.90%) led the volume and value charts with 269.72m units traded in deals worth N1.48bn.
However, a total turnover of 3.029 billion shares worth N33.626 billion in 29,505 deals was traded during the week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 3.602 billion shares valued at N36.451 billion that exchanged hands last week in 27,801 deals.
Market breadth closed positive at a 2.18-to-1 ratio with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones. FTNCOCOA (+10.00%) led twenty-three others on the laggard’s log while ARDOVA (-9.84%) topped ten others on the leader’s table.
Meanwhile, one of the key drivers of the market this week for global markets has been rising expectations that the US government will be able to prevent a devastating default on its debt. Additionally, sentiments received a boost from strong corporate earnings released during the week.
In line with this, US equities (DJIA: +0.7%; S&P 500: +1.8%) were headed for a weekly gain amid positive reactions to better-than-expected Q1 earnings from big companies like Deree, Walmart, and Target.
Likewise, European equities (STOXX Europe: +0.4; FTSE 100: +0.1%) were on course to close higher, as US debt ceiling talks boosted investors’ sentiments.
In Asia, Japanese equities (Nikkei 225: +4.8%) surpassed the 30,000 threshold for the first time in about 20 months, as investors reacted positively to the robust Q1-23 GDP expansion (+1.6% y/y) and solid corporate earnings.
On the other hand, Chinese equities (SSE: +0.3%) gained marginally as investors anticipated more supportive government policies in light of weak economic data from China.
Elsewhere, the Emerging (MSCI EM: +0.5%) index closed positively following gains in China (+0.3%) while the Frontier (MSCI FM: -0.1%) market index dipped consequent upon bearish sentiments in Vietnam (-0.6%).
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