By Mike Abbah
Nigeria’s equities market closed in the positive territory last week, as investors saw their assets in the bourse recording a lift of N63 billion in market capitalisation.
It was the second successive week of positive postings in the month of November about six months since the market took an upward trend having suffered huge loss previously on the back of Nigeria’s challenging foreign exchange (forex) market…
Market result last week showed the All Share Index rose 180.69 points or 0.49 per cent to close the week’s trading at 37,120.28 points.
This led to an increase in the Month-to-Date (M-t-D) and Year-to-Date (Y-t-D) returns to 1.20 per cent and 38.12 per cent, respectively, as market capitalisation increased N63 billion to close at N12.847 trillion.
A look at last week’s market performance showed that the gains recorded during the week were driven by price appreciation in Dangote Cement, Forte Oil, Mobil, Diamond Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank.
Sector performance was mixed last week with three of five indices closing in the positive territory, also.
The Oil and Gas index led gainers, up 0.83 per cent week-on-week owing to appreciation in Forte Oil and Mobil, whereas the Banking and Industrial Goods indices followed, inching 0.50 per cent and 0.38 per cent higher as investors took positions in Diamond Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank and Dangote Cement.
However, the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices declined 1.09 per cent and 0.07 per cent on account of losses in Linkage Assurance, Mansard Insurance, Nigerian Breweries and Flourmill Nigeria.
Furthermore, market breath closed positive with 30 stocks advanced against 29 decliners. The Caverton led the top performers with 30.2 per cent, Cadbury Nigeria followed with a gain of 22.1 per cent, while Forte Oil gained 10.3 per cent.
On the other side, Champion Breweries led the losers chart with 14.3 per cent, Linkage Assurance followed with a decline of 12.8 per cent and Law Union shed 9.9 per cent.
Activity level softened as average volume and value traded declined 3.4 per cent and 22.2 per cent to 263.2 million units and N2.8 billion respectively.
The most active stocks in terms of total volume traded were Diamond Bank with 147.2 million shares, FBN Holding traded 132.8 million shares and Fidelity Bank transacted 100.6 million shares.
Market watchers expect a sustained rally in market performance for the rest of the year on the back of rising price of oil in the international market.
The impressive performance of the Investors & Exporters window of the forex market will also help to push the market further into positive territory as increased foreign and domestic inflows are expected to take place.
