Investors on the Nigerian stock market last week traded a total number of 2.737 billion shares valued at N32.042 billion exchanged by investors in 32,217 deals. The market, which closed the week on the positive side as investors extended bargain hunting on handful of stocks and increased activity from fund managers.
Week-on-week, the All Share Index (ASI) gained 532.88 absolute points, representing a growth of 1.60 per cent to close at 33,810.58 points. On the other hand, the market capitalisation gained N188 billion, to close at N11.692 trillion.
Performance across sectors showed that the Banking index advanced the most, up 4.99 per cent on account of upticks in Guaranty Trust Bank and Zenith Bank, while the Insurance index trailed closely with a weekly gain of 3.57 per cent W-o-W on the back of gains in Mansard Insurance and Aiico Insurance.
Similarly, the Consumer Goods index inched 0.51 per cent higher due to bullish sentiment in Unilever and Nigerian Breweries. On the flip side, the Oil & Gas index declined 4.2 per cent due to profit taking in Forte Oil and Seplat, while the Industrial Goods index slid 0.28 per cent on account of losses in Wapco.
Outlook for this week
Analysts at APT Securities Limited said, “We expect the market to retain its positive position in the coming week, though there is likely to be a negative stance intermittently during the course of the trading week basically for profit taking.”
Analysts at Afrinvest Limited noted that, “Whilst we remain optimistic that the upbeat market performance would persist in the near term as investor sentiment remains largely driven by strengthening macroeconomic fundamentals and forex management, we envisage some profit taking by investors on value stocks in the early trading sessions of this week.”
