The equities market extended last week’s positive performance to the outgoing week as the All-Share index advanced 0.9% w/w to 49,316.29 points, following a price rally in Zenith (+9.0 percent), BUACEMENT (+6.6%), and WAPCO (+3.0 percent).
Consequently, market capitalization increased ₦236.5bn to ₦26.8tn while Year-To-Date, YTD returns improved to 15.5 percent.
However, according to Afrinvest analysts, activity level was mixed as average volume traded rose 6.4% w/w to 162.8m units while value traded fell 10.5% w/w to ₦2.7bn, with Sterling Bank(191.6 million), Access Corp (128.5 million units and GTCO, (57.1 million units, being the most traded stocks by volume.
MTNN (₦3.8bn), GTCO (₦1.2bn), and ACCESSCORP (₦1.1bn) led by value.
However, performance across sectors under their coverage was positively skewed as 4 of the 6 indices advanced w/w, with the Industrial Goods and Banking indices leading the pack, up 3.4% and 2.9% w/w respectively following price uptick in BUACEMENT (+6.6%) and ZENITH (+9.0%).
Trailing, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices rose by 0.5% and 0.4% sequentially due to gains in WAPIC (+10.8%) and ARDOVA (+9.5%).
Conversely, sell-offs in MTNN (-0.5%) and DANGSUGAR (-4.3%) dragged the AFR-ICT and Consumer Goods indices lower by 0.2% apiece.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.03x from 0.83x as 31 stocks gained, 28 lost while 93 closed flat. LEARNAFR (+28.5%), THOMASWY (+18.8%), and CORNERSTONE (+13.0%) led the top gainers while MCNICHOL (-11.5%), ACADEMY (-9.7%) and PRESTIGE (-8.7%) led the decliners.
The analysts were optimistic that the coming week will witness a modest sell-off as investors begin to re-align portfolios ahead of the new year.
