Stock market drops by 0.04% in week ended July 5

Nigeria’s equities market closed the trading week ended Friday, July 5 in red, after decreasing by 0.04 percent.

In line with most analysts’ expectations, the equities market was mixed as investors explored opportunistic investment strategy.

The negative close in review trading week was driven by investors who sold consumer goods stocks despite bargains in banking, oil & gas, insurance and industrial stocks.

Market activities increased in favour of banking stocks due to ongoing banks recapitalisation, while for other counters, expectation of their second quarter (Q2) results filing and envisaged corporate actions triggered investors buy decisions.

While some investors cherry-picked fundamentally sound stocks in the review week, elevated interest rates in the fixed income market on the other hand continued to negatively impact the equities market.

Week-on-week (WoW), the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation decreased from preceding week’s close of 100,057.49 points and N56.601trillion respectively to 100,022.03 points and N56.580trillion.

The market erased earlier gains after recording three days of negative closes as against two days of positives. The stock market’s return year-to-date (YTD) lower to 33.77 percent at the close of trading on Friday.