Nigerian Stock Exchange Differs Economic Uncertainty, Rises by N2.1 Trillion Last Week

There seems to be no stop in sight for the high flying Nigerian stock market as local investors continue to dump huge amounts on stocks despite rising economic uncertainty and weak macro fundamentals.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange market capitalisation rose by a shocking 12.97 percent or N2.101 trillion from N16.207 trillion it settled a week ago to N18.308 trillion last week. The highest in a single week in over 5 years.

Last week, the bourse rose above the 5 percent threshold to trigger the circuit breaker put in place to force decorum in an unusual trading situation like the Exchange is witnessing in recent weeks.

The NSE All-Share Index also gained 12.97 percent or 4021.29 index points from 31,016.17 index point it closed in the previous week to 35,037.46 index points on Friday. Also, the highest appreciation in over half a decade.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange continues to gain across the board — except oil and insurance sectors — despite falling demands, high unemployment rate and weak consumer buying power that is presently hurting sales, profitability and new job creation.

Despite these obvious reasons, investors traded 4.509 billion shares worth N58.733 billion in 47,140 transactions, against a total of 2.067 billion shares valued at N22.636 billion that exchanged hands in 25,187 deals in the previous week.

In terms of volume traded, the financial services industry led the activity table with 3.073 billion shares worth N35.408 billion traded in 25,894 deals. Therefore, contributing 68.15 percent and 60.29 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value, respectively.

This was followed by the conglomerates industry with 437.822 million shares valued at N771.280 million in 1,864 deals

The consumer goods industry came third with a turnover of 373.613 million shares worth N7.816 billion in 7,471 deals.

Zenith Bank Plc, FBN Holding and Transcorp Hotels led by volume with a combined 1.426 billion shares valued at N18.083 billion in 9,537 deals. The three contributed 31.63 percent and 30.79 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value traded, respectively.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange total gain rose to 30.53 percent year-to-date while the total gain in the final quarter represents around half of the gain at 14.76 percent.

Top gainers for the week were Oando Plc, Japaul Oil & Maritime Services Plc, others as shown below.