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By Chinwendu Obienyi and Chukwuma Umeorah
Despite recording one trading loss out of five trading sessions, some of Santa Claus’ largesse got to Nigeria’s stock market as it sustained its bullish momentum with its All-Share Index (ASI) recording a week-on-week (w/w) gain of 2.26 per cent to close at 74,023.27 points.
This feat is the first ever in history as the market crossed the 74,000 psychological point. As defined by the Stock Trader’s Almanac, the Santa Claus rally refers to the stock market’s tendency to rise during the last five trading days of the current calendar year and first two trading sessions of the New Year.
The market had kick-started the new trading week on a strong note and investors at the trading floor were eagerly waiting for the Santa Claus rally to further fuel stock market gains. They got their wish as market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) grew to N40.507 trillion from the opening value of N39.613 trillion, representing a N894 billion gain w/w.
The gain, according to market operators, came on the back of strong performances in Airtel Africa, MTNN, Zenith Bank which outweighed losses in Nestle, Stanbic and Nigerian Breweries Plc.
Similarly, weekly performance was positive as five counters of the market gained while one lost. Leading the gainers, the AFR-ICT and Banking indices gained 3.6 per cent and 3.4 per cent w/w respectively due to price appreciation in Airtel Africa (+4.9 per cent) and Fidelity Bank (+11.1 per cent).
The Insurance and Industrial Goods indices followed with a gain of 1.7 per cent and 0.3 per cent w/w due to price uptick in Custodian (+16.3 per cent) and WAPCO (+5.7 per cent). Also, buy interest in Eterna (+3.9 per cent) pushed the Oil & Gas index up by 0.1 per cent w/w. Conversely, sell pressure in NB (-5.0 per cent) pulled the Consumer Goods index lower by 0.7 per cent w/w.
Meanwhile, a total turnover of 2.474 billion shares worth N53.787 billion in 35,848 deals was traded by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 1.882 billion shares valued at N31.630 billion that exchanged hands in 33,020 deals, in the previous week.
The financial services industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.756 billion shares valued at N24.641 billion traded in 17,589 deals; thus contributing 70.95 per cent and 45.81 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively. The conglomerates industry followed with 222.963 million shares worth N1.781 billion in 2,573 deals while the services industry, recorded a turnover of 93.820 million shares worth N528.510 million in 2,166 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc, Transnational Corporation Plc and Access Holdings Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 621.814 million shares worth N6.338 billion in 4,235 deals, contributing 25.13 per cent and 11.78 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Data gotten from the NGX’s website revealed that the top performing stocks for the week were Infinity (+60.6 per cent), DAAR (+50.0 per cent), and Multiverse (+41.3 per cent) while ABC Transport (-16.5 per cent), OMATEK (-12.3 per cent), and etranzact (-12.3 per cent) were the top underperforming stocks. Reacting to the performance, analysts stated that they expect the positive sentiment to be sustained supported by year-end portfolio rebalancing exercise.
