Banking stocks drive market’s positive open to new week

Investors buy interest in banking, insurance and industrial goods stocks caused the Nigerian equities market to open the new week on a positive note.

The market rose by 0.17 percent at the close of trading on Monday, pushing this year’s return higher to 33.34 percent.

“We saw some bargain-hunting activity in the Banking space, given the widespread selloffs we saw in the space in previous weeks.

“We expect the market to remain on the sidelines, as Q1’24 earnings start to trickle in; as such we envisage a mixed trading session on Tuesday,” Vetiva Research analysts said on Monday.

The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation appreciated from 99,539.75 points and N56.296 trillion respectively to 99,665.05 points and N56.367 trillion.

In 8,298 deals, investors exchanged 306,620,144 shares worth N5.300billion.

“We expect activities in the fixed income market to continue to stand as a strong demotivator toward equities investments,” according to Lagos-based United Capital research analysts.

“We expect the status quo to remain same, with bearish sentiments outweighing. From an alternate viewpoint, we expect bargain hunting activities to lurk in the shadows, owing to the tremendous opportunities presented by the recent bearish trend (particularly around the banks),” the analysts said in their April 22 note to investors.