Stocks gain N167bn in one week on increased bargain

Nigeria’s equities market sentiments tilted slightly in favour of the bulls as heavy-weight counters drove performance indices higher in the week ended Friday August 26.

Expectedly, the market closed the week in the green zone, rising by 0.63 percent or about N167billion. This came on the heels of three days of gains as against two days of losses.

The record positive also came as investors and fund managers cherry-picked stocks with strong underlying fundamentals as well as those that have proposed to pay interim dividend.

Though month-to-date (MtD), the market has decreased by 1.37 percent, its positive return year-to-date (YtD) printed higher at 16.31percent on Friday August 26.

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The market’s All-Share Index (ASI) and capitalisation rose to 49,682.15 points and N26.796trillion respectively as against preceding weekend when both indicators stood at 49,370.62 points and N26.629trillion.

The NGX-30 index which measures the performance of 30 most capitalised stocks on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) increased by 0.48percent in the review week.

Looking at the performance of key sectoral indices, only NGX Insurance Index closed the week in green by 3.88 percent while others closed the week in red.

NGX Banking Index was down by 0.69percent, NGX Consumer Goods Index (-1.73percent), NGX Industrial Index (-4.19percent) and NGX Oil and Gas Index (-4.08percent).