FBN, GTBank, Zenith Bolstered Nigerian Stock Market Last Week

• FBN, GTBank, Zenith Bolstered Nigerian Stock Market Last Week

The Nigerian Stock Exchange gained 4.45 percent last week as more local investors jumped on underpriced shares.

Domestic investors are taking advantage of shares with strong fundamentals but battered by COVID-19 pandemic in the last few weeks. Local and foreign investors had abandoned the nation’s assets amid the rising uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, low oil prices and an unclear economic path.

However, since President Muhammadu Buhari eased restrictions on movement and commenced the process to gradually reopen the nation’s economy, local investors have started taking advantage of undervalued shares with macro fundamentals and healthy financial results in the first quarter of the year.

The market capitalisation of list stocks expanded to N12.531 trillion while the NSE-All Share index closed the week at 24,045.40 basis points, up from 23,021.01 recorded in the previous week.

During the week, investors traded 1.662 billion shares valued at N18.205 billion in 28,791 transactions, higher than the 1.012 billion shares worth N9.892 billion exchanged in 17,023 transactions the previous week.

The bourse has gained 12.89 percent in the second quarter, one of the largest in the world, according to Bloomberg. Year-to-date return moderated to 10.42 percent last week.

In terms of volume traded, the financial services sector led activity with 1.385 billion shares valued at N11.813 billion transacted in 13,117 deals, while the services sector followed with 53.551 million shares valued at N128.065 million exchanged in 1,003 deals.

The consumer goods sector came third with a turnover of 53.444 million shares worth N2.780 billion in 3,607 transactions.

FBN Holdings Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank and Zenith Bank Plc were the three most traded stocks by volume last week, accounting for 774.294 million shares worth N9.796 billion in 7,516 deals.