Three banks’ stocks, Fidelity Bank Plc, FCMB Group Plc and Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc dominated activities in the financial service sector of the capital market last week.
Consequently, the financial services industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 2.4 billion shares valued at N26.1 billion, which traded in 22,833 deals, thus contributing 72.3 per cent to the total equity turnover volume.
Trading in the top three bank equities accounted for 767.9 million shares worth N7.3 billion in 4,589 deals, contributing 23.1 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Following the banking sector last week was the conglomerates industry with 213.139 million shares worth N2.434 billion in 2,284 deals. The third was the oil and gas industry, with a turnover of 163.3 million shares worth N2.1 billion in 3,443 deals.
Last week, a turnover of 3.320 billion shares worth N41.8 billion in 46,994 deals was traded this week by investors on the floor of the exchange, in contrast to a total of 1.186 billion shares valued at N31.4 billion that was exchanged in 23,969 deals during the preceding week.
On the price movement chart, the nation’s bourse reopened the first trading week of 2024 in an upbeat with gains recorded on all trading sessions.
Accordingly, the NGX all-share index and market capitalisation appreciated by 6.5 per cent to close the week at 79,664.66 and N43.594 trillion respectively.
Similarly, all other indices finished higher except NGX Growth and NGX Sovereign Bond, which depreciated by 6.4 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively; the NGX ASeM index closed flat.
Also, the total traded volume increased significantly by 139.2 per cent w/w while sectoral performance was positive as gains in the insurance (+14.1 per cent), banking (+10.3.per cent), consumer goods (+4.4 per cent), industrial goods (+3.6 per cent) and oil and gas (+3.0 per cent) reflected the overall market performance.
Reacting to market performance, the Chief Research Officer of Investdata Consulting Limited, Ambrose Omordion, urged investors to target companies with a consistent track record of dividend payment, strong fundamentals and growth prospects that will support growth in earnings.
“Volume trading pattern suggests the return of many players who had gone on holidays and institutional investors accumulating more positions as others investment windows returns remain below inflation.
As the anticipated financial market and economic reset in 2024, comes with huge opportunities to create wealth for smart investors and traders.”
Meanwhile, the FMDQ FX spot and derivatives markets turnover for the week ending January 5, was $305.05 million, representing a decrease of 20.9 per cent ($80.7 million), from $385.75 million reported for the week ending December 29.
According to the exchange, the week-on-week (W/W) decrease in the total turnover was solely driven by the 21.3 per cent ($82.17 million) decrease in FX spot turnover, offsetting the 226 ($1.47 million) increase in FX Derivatives turnover.
It also noted that the WoW increase in FX Derivatives turnover was solely driven by the 226.15 per cent ($1.47 million) increase in FX Forwards turnover, while there were no trades executed in both exchange-traded FX Futures and Cleared Naira-Settled Non-Deliverable Forwards (Cleared USD/NGN NDFs) markets.
The exchange said that the total value of transactions in the FX Spot market for the week ending on January 5 was $302.93 million, representing a decrease of 21.3 per cent ($82.17 million) from the value of transactions executed in the week ending on December 29 ($385.1 million).
