NGX Weekly: Nigerian stocks gain despite holidays

Two public holidays observed for the celebration of the Eid-Fitr festival last week kept activity in the equity market low, depressing the volume of trade by more than 40 per cent.

But that did not keep stocks from enlarging in value, even though the pace of appreciation was muted, with all the companies listed on the N20.579 trillion-worth market adding N148 billion.

The all-share index and market capitalisation each rose by 0.72 per cent.

As the outlook for this week looks more promising in terms of liquidity, traders, market makers and many investors will be focusing keenly on a meeting of the central bank’s monetary policy team later in May where the benchmark rate will be decided.

A rate cut often stimulates activity in the market through increased investment; moving it up, on the other hand, keeps trade low in most cases, driving down share prices.

All the key market performance indicators last week rose. Market breadth was positive, with 33 gainers emerging compared to 19 losers.

The all-share index closed at 39,481.89 points and the latter at N20.579 trillion.

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Trade volume of 840.334 million shares estimated at N9.561 billion was recorded in 13,239 deals. This compared with the 1.419 billion shares worth N15.918 billion that were traded in 18,459 deals the previous week.

The financial services sector led the activity chart, with 541.015 shares valued at N5.493 billion and transacted in 7,824 deals. It added 64.38 per cent and 57.45 per cent to the total equity volume and value respectively.

The ICT industry followed, trading 90.382 million shares estimated at N571.642 million in 500 deals. The conglomerates sector was third, trading 84.792 million shares priced at N512.775 million in 551 deals.

Regarding index movement, all indices advanced except the NSE Sovereign Bond Index which nosedived by 10.69 per cent. The NSE Growth and NSE ASeM indices did not change.