Nigeria’s stock investors booked over N155 billion gain in the trading week ended Friday, September 4, amid renewed interest in the local bourse, despite pockets of profit taking activities.
Going further into September, the market will remain on this path to recovery after March’s lows.
The positive trend should be supported by investors buying banking stocks in move to qualify for interim dividends proposed by some lenders in their recently published half-year (H1) financials.
Unattractive yield environment coupled with buoyant liquidity in the financial system as well as some positive H1 earnings publication spur locals demand for equity, said United Capital research analyst.
Week-on-week (wow), the equities market of Africa’s largest economy closed in green as investors took advantage of cheap valuations of some banking, consumer goods, oil& gas and insurance stocks.
In the review trading week, NSE Banking Index increased by +2.76percent; NSE Oil & Gas Index (+3.65percent); NSE Insurance Index (+1.96percent); NSE Consumer Goods Index (+1.49percent), and NSE Industrial Index rose by +0.44percent.
“Given that a number of fundamentally sound stocks remain below their fair values, the bulls continued to take advantage of cheap valuations, as bargain hunting activities were recorded in all of the five trading sessions of the week”, said equity research analysts at Lagos-based Vetiva Securities.
With the consecutive gains recorded in the review week, the analysts expect the market to trade mixed in new week, “with continued bargain hunting in some counters and profit taking in others.”
The market’s benchmark performance indicator –the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) –increased by 1.17percent to close at 25,605.64 points as against week-open low of at 25,309.37 points while the market capitalisation of listed stocks increased from N13.203 trillion to N13.358trillion.
The negative return recorded year-to-date (ytd) decreased to 4.61 percent. The market has increased by 1.10percent this month.
