By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Nigerian equities market on Friday ended the week on a bullish note as all-share index (ASI) gained 1.43 percent to close at 29,985.08 points, while market capitalisation also appreciated 1.61 percent to close at N10.005 trillion.
With this gain, Year-to-Date (YtD) returns at the Nigerian bourse currently stand at 13.48 percent from 14.7 percent recorded last week.
Cordros weekly update affirmed that the gain recorded this week was championed by the impressive performances of the Insurance, Banking and Industrial Goods sectors as shown by their indices which appreciated by 2.23 percent on average.
“The biggest gain during the week was recorded on Wednesday, February 04 where the ASI rose by 2 percent on the back of fresh entries in the market. Though there were losses in Thursday (-1.36 percent) and Friday (-0.71 percent) sessions, these were not strong enough to prevent the market from closing the week on a positive note,” the report said.
According to the report, the Industrial Goods sector index led the pack with a Week-on-Week (w/w) gain of 4.06 percent, followed by the Banking and Consumer Goods indices which climbed up by 2.66 percent and 0.29 percent w/w respectively. On the contrary, the Oil and Gas sector index lost 0.13 percent w/w.
In terms of turnover, the Nigerian stock market recorded 2.027 billion shares worth N20.627 billion in 23,436 deals traded this week by investors compared to a total of 2.210 billion shares valued at N28.960 billion that exchanged hands last week in 19,495 deals.
It reported that the Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.523 billion shares valued at N11.231 billion traded in 14,695 deals; thus contributing 75.12 percent and 54.45 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
On the second position is the Consumer Goods Industry with a turnover of 210.188 million shares worth N5.116 billion in 3,950 deals. While, the third position was occupied by the Oil & Gas Industry with 122.812 million shares worth N2.293 billion in 1,259 deals.
Trading in the shares of FBN Holdings Plc (318.96 million), Access Bank Plc (292.98 million) and Zenith Bank Plc (128.31 million) collectively accounted for 38.63 percent of the total market volume traded this week, whilst Nigerian Breweries (N2.63 billion), FBN Holdings (N2.24 billion) and Zenith Bank (N2.16 billion) accounted for 37.70 percent of market value transactions, the Cordros report added.
A summary of price changes on the Nigerian bourse shows that 42 equities climbed up in price during the week higher than 28 of the past week. 29 equities plunged in price lower 41 equities of the previous week, while 125 equities remained unchanged lower than 127 reported last week.
