Stock market rises by 0.29% as week opens

Nigeria’s stock market furthered its bullish streak on Monday, February 6 as investors continued to take positions in attractive counters. The market rose by N81billion or 0.29percent on Monday.

Despite the sell-off in banking and Oil & Gas stocks, investor’s interest in insurance, industrial and consumer goods stocks helped the market’s positive start to the new week. The market has risen by 6.08percent year-to-date (YtD).

“This week, we anticipate that the market will remain upbeat as investors continue to take positions in attractive stocks. Furthermore, it is expected that the broadly-positive earnings performance would encourage investors. Thus, despite the T-bills auction slated for this week, we do not expect a drastic flow of funds from the equities market.

“However, we do not rule out profit-taking activities from investors on tickers that have appreciated. Thus, we expect the market to close in the green zone this week,” said Meristem research analysts in their February 6 stock recommendation.

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GTCO, Zenith Bank, Chams, UBA and Transcorp were top-5 traded stocks on the Bourse. In 3,811 deals, investors exchanged 132,955,886 shares valued at N3.360billion.

The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and equities market capitalisation rose from preceding day’s 54,213.09 points and N29.528trillion respectively to 54,367.74 points and N29.609trillion.

“We expect the bourse’s broad-based bullish run to continue as investors’ risk-on sentiments continue to prevail amid decent earnings performance and a depressed yield environment in the money market.

“We see room for pockets of bearish sentiments owing to profit-taking activities. We recommend that fund managers cherry-pick stocks with attractive prices, solid valuations, and dividend performance to take advantage of an extension of the current bullish run,” said United Capital research analysts in their February 6 note.