Sentiment in the Nigeria stock market closed last week on a positive note with a gain of N151 billion after four consecutive weeks of negative performance, as investors went on bargain-hunting ahead of the Easter holidays.
The market opened for four trading days last week as the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) declared Friday April 10, 2020 and Monday April 13, 2019 as Public Holidays to mark the end of the Lenten season and Easter celebrations.
As such, the NSE All-Share Index grew by 289.41 points or 1.37 per cent week-on-week (W-o-W) to close at 21,384.03 points. Similarly, market capitalisation rose by N151 billion to close at N11.144 trillion.
Given the renewed bullish activity, especially on the banking stocks, most of the sub-sector gauges closed in green: the NSE Banking, the NSE Consumer Goods and the NSE Insurance indices rose by 12.39 per cent, 6.50 per cent and 0.18 per cent respectively to 263.53 points, 334.59 points and 117.98 points respectively. However, the NSE Industrial and the NSE Oil/Gas indices plummeted by 6.59 per cent and 4.76 per cent to 960.57 points 206.11 points.
Market breadth closed positive with 35 gainers and 18 losers. Lafarge Africa led the gainers table by 41.34 per cent to close at N12.65, per share. Wema Bank followed with a gain of 25.53 per cent to close at 59 kobo, while United Bank for Africa (UBA) rose by 25.25 per cent to close at N6.20, per share.
On the other side, Ardova Plc led the decliners table by 18.48 per cent to close at N11.25, per share. Skyway Aviation Handling Company followed with a loss of 15.61 per cent each to close at N2.00, while BUA Cement declined by 12.75 per cent to close at N30.80, per share.
Overall, a total turnover of 2.440 billion shares worth N19.932 billion in 18,918 deals were traded last week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 1.534 billion shares valued at N11.267 billion that exchanged hands previous week in 18,928 deals.
In the new week, analysts at Cowry Asset Management Limited expected “The NSE ASI to rise amid the resolution by OPEC to cut crude oil output by 10 million barrels per day. Hence, we advise investors to trade cautiously as they gun for high beta and dividend yield stocks. We expect the equities market to be volatile in the coming week but note that the expected upward movement in prices is likely be to be short-lived as the global demand for crude oil amid Coronavirus (Covid-19) still remain a challenge.”