In the trading week ended Friday, September 3, investors in Nigeria’s equities market witnessed decrease in the value of their investment following sessions of profit-taking and bargain hunting.
The review week ended with three trading days of losses as against two sessions of gains, which powered the market’s 0.57percent decline or about N118 billion loss
The stock market’s negative return year-to-date (YtD) stood higher at -2.51percent at the close of trading session on Friday, September 3.
On the positive side, the market witnessed increased demand in the Tier-1 banking names, especially in Access Bank Plc and Zenith Bank on the back of their impressive half-year result and interim dividend of 30kobo per share respectively.
Investors were buying these banking stocks to qualify for their interim dividend payment this month.
The market’s benchmark performance indicators –the NGX All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation depreciated from week-open lows of 39,485.65 points and N20.573 trillion respectively to 39,261.01 points and N20.455trillion.
Read also: Access Bank grows half year pre-tax profit by 31% to N97.5bn
Despite the negative end to the review week to September 3, stock buyers are expected to take further positions in banking stocks particularly those that will deliver better than expected results.
In the review week, Access Bank Plc, Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets released its financial scorecard for the first six months of 2021.
The bank proposes an interim dividend of 30kobo per share to shareholders whose names appear in the register of members as at close of business on Thursday, September 16.
Access Bank grew its half-year pre-tax profit by 31 percent to N97.5 billion from N74.3 billion in the comparable period of 2020. It also recorded a 14 percent jump in gross earnings to N450.6billion compared to N396.8 billion in 2020.
