THE upbeat in the equities sector of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), coupled with investors’ renewed interests in listed equities buoyed equities transactions for the month of July as a total of 7.64 billion shares valued at N58.7 billion changed hands in the month compared to 7.11 billion shares worth N60.7 billion recorded in June.

At the Over-the-Counter bond market last week, a turnover of 224.16 million units worth N224.4 billion changed hands in contrast to a total of 261.75 million units valued at N291.7 billion exchanged in the previous week.

Although, there were no transactions in the Federal Government Development Stocks, State Government Bonds and Industrial Loans/Preference Stocks sectors, the 7th FGN Bond 2015
Series 2 was the most active bond last week with a traded volume of 59.2 million units valued at N49.4 billion, followed by the 7th FGN Bond 2013 Series 1 with 41.7 million units valued at N41.1 billion.

In the equities sector, a turnover of 2.11 billion shares worth N17.7 billion was exchanged by investors, in contrast to a total of 2 billion shares valued at N14.1 billion traded in the previous week.

With the bulls maintaining a stronghold on the equities sector and price gains outweighing price losses, corporate performance indicators of the Exchange rose by 2.3 per cent as the All-Share Index closed higher at 25,844.18 points, while market capitalisation of listed equities rose to N6.32 trillion as at the close of transactions on Friday.

Furthermore, the NSE-30 Index appreciated by 28.57 points or 2.7 per cent to close at 1,075.90 points compared to an appreciation of 1.4 per cent recorded last week. Three of the four sectoral indices appreciated during the week.     

The NSE Food/Beverage Index appreciated by 21.27 points or 2.6 per cent to close at 840.4 points, the NSE Banking Index appreciated by 7.67 points or 2.03 per cent to close at 390.59 per cent.
Similarly, the NSE Insurance Index appreciated by 6.93 points or 3.82 per cent to close at 187.59 points, while the NSE Oil/Gas Index, however, depreciated by 11.62 points or 3.04 per cent to close at 374.62 points.

On the week’s price movement chart, Nestle Nigeria Plc led the bulls, up by 800 kobo to close at N364.00 per share, followed by Guinness Nigeria Plc with 700 kobo to close at N169.00 per share, while Nigerian Breweries ranked third with a gain of 424 kobo to close at N70.24 per share.

On the other hand, two Petroleum Marketing stocks, Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc and African Petroleum Plc both led 47 other stocks to suffer price depreciation, losing 794 kobo and 582 kobo each to close at N158.00 and N27.08 respectively, while Julius Berger Nigeria Plc lost 274 kobo to close at N55.01 per share.

Accounting for the week’s turnover volume, investors staked N9 billion on 1.1 billion of banks’ stocks, making it the most active sub-sector in volume terms during the week, followed by the insurance sub-sector with a turnover of 329.7 million shares valued at N352.7 million, while the Hotel and Tourism sub-sector traded 236.2 million shares worth N1.1 billion.

A review of activities in the sub-sectors showed that the volume in the banking sub-sector was largely driven by activity in the shares of Diamond Bank Plc, UBA Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, Zenith Bank Plc and Access Bank Plc.

Trading in the shares of the five bpranks accounted for 560.8 million shares, representing 51.2 per cent and 26.6 per cent of the sub-sector’s turnover and total volume traded during the week, respectively.

For the insurance sub-sector, the volume in the sub-sector was largely boosted by 189.9 million shares of AIICO Insurance Plc worth N232.1 million, while 227.7 million shares of Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc valued at N1.07 billion lifted the volume in the Hotel and Tourism sub-sector.

 

(Source: Guardian)