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By Chinwendu Obienyi
Buoyed by investors’ interest in highly capitalised stocks, Nigeria’s securities market recorded its second consecutive gain in the month of April as its All-Share index (ASI) closed 2 per cent higher after four trading sessions.
Daily Sun analysis of the market’s weekly performance revealed that the rally in index heavyweights, AirteI Africa (+4.73 per cent), Dangote Cement (+1.93 per cent), WAPCO (+10.61 per cent), Seplat (+4.57 per cent) and some Tier-1 banks, Zenith Bank (+1.20 per cent), FBNH (+3.02 per cent) and Stanbic (+3.42 per cent) drove the market into the green territory.
As a result, the year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 13.44 per cent and 48,459.65 points while the market capitalization gained N486 to close at N26.125 trillion from an opening value of N25.639 trillion. Similarly, all other indices finished higher with the exception of NGX Insurance, which depreciated at 0.05 per cent while NGX Asem, NGX Afr. bank value and NGX Growth indices closed flat.
Meanwhile, a total turnover of 1.302 billion shares worth N17.813 billion in 20,212 deals was traded this week, in contrast to a total of 1.247 billion shares valued at N22.372 billion that exchanged hands in the previous week in 23,406 deals.
The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 836.781 million shares valued at N6.007 billion traded in 9,527 deals; thus contributing 64.28 and 33.72 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Oil and Gas Industry followed with 86.909 million shares worth N1.243 billion in 1,770 deals while the Consumer Goods Industry recorded a turnover of 86.286 million shares worth N2.225 billion in 3,056 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely Fidelity Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc and Universal Insurance Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 279.507 million shares worth N2.627 billion in 2,504 deals, contributing 21.47 per cent and 14.75 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
