Stock Market Fails to Sustain Bullish Run Last Week

• Stock Market Fails to Sustain Bullish Run Last Week

The Nigerian Stock Exchange closed lower last week as market uncertainty remains due to the rising number of COVID-19 patients in Africa’s largest economy.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had reported that the total number of infected people rose to 1273 last week, up from 42 about a month ago.  While the number of discharged patients has also risen to 239, so has the number of deaths surged to 40 from 2 as of March 24, 2020.

The rising number of infected people despite measures to curtail it has left investors wondering if the lockdown predicted to erode most of the gains so far would be extended.

With the weak market sentiment and the report that the CBN fined 28 deposit money banks N1.4 trillion, investors traded total shares of 1.195 billion valued at N13.979 billion in 20,591 transactions during the week, more than the 1.495 billion shares valued at N12.894 billion that were exchanged in 20,982 deals in the previous week.

In terms of volume traded, the financial services sector let with 965.571 million shares valued at N7.811 billion traded in 11,710 deals while the industrial goods sector followed with 54.803 million shares worth N1.509 billion and exchanged in 2,043 deals.

The conglomerates’ sector came third with a turnover of 54.114 million shares estimated at N111.406 million in 460 deals.

The top three most traded stocks were the FBN Holdings Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc. The three companies accounted for a combined 581.950 million shares valued at N6.363 billion in 7,185 transactions during the week.

The market capitalisation of listed equities depreciated by 1.41 percent to N11.778 trillion while the NSE All-Share Index also dipped by the same percent or 322.2 basis points to 22,599.38 bps. Bringing the year to date return to -15.81 percent.