Nigeria’s stock investors booked gain of about N32billion in the shortened trading week ended May 29. Investors traded for just three days after the public holidays.
Market watchers say the gradual re-opening of economic activities following Covid-19 lockdown by the government supports activities at the equity market.
The equity market has continued to function seamlessly and positively too despite the global pandemic as dealers remotely trade listed stocks.
After sessions of bargains and profit taking, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) inched up by 0.25percent week-on-week (wow) to 25,267.82 points from week open low of 25,204.75 points.
Also, the market’s negative return year-to-date stood lower at – 5.86 percent. The value of listed stocks increased to N13.168trillion from week open low of N13.136 trillion.
In a new trading week from June 1, the market may witness mixed performance as investors react to more first-quarter (Q1) corporate earnings releases.
This may result to some bargain hunting activities in favour of fundamentally sound stocks and profit taking actions on some counters that have recorded gains recently.
“The ASI closed the week positive due to price increases in a number of large cap which neutralised the effect of profit taking witnessed in the last two trading sessions.
“We expect a similar pattern next week as investors continue to take position in some counters while taking profit in others which had gained in recent times”, according to Lagos based analysts at Vetiva Securities.
“We expect the overall interest in African market equities to strengthen as more countries begin to ease lockdown policies and businesses begin to re-open”, United Capital research analysts said in their recent note to investors.
