By Peter Egwuatu
The equities market sustained the positive sentiment ahead of the forthcoming gubernatorial general election and expectations of more dividend declarations by listed companies.
Analysts attributed the equities rally to confidence boost by the local investors due to the better than expected corporate earnings post-COVID, higher payouts, mixed macroeconomic data among others.
The seeming economic recovery and the rise of crude oil price above the nation’s $75 per barrel budget benchmark are positive signs for the equity market, going forward, despite the ongoing portfolio realignments, due to the ongoing rally and volatility, expected improvements in yields at the fixed income market and post-election rally.
Meanwhile, market review last week showed that the bullish run in the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX has switched into a higher gear, as investors cherry-picked stocks following decent 2022 full year corporate earnings releases. Accordingly, the All-Share Index, ASI advanced by 1.3% Week on Week WoW to close at 55,529.21 points while market capitalisation gained N316 billion to close at N30.249 trillion from N29.933 trillion . So, Year to Date, YtD gain was 8.6% driven by buying interests in GEREGU which gained 31.4%, followed by BUA Foods 10.5%, Dangote Cement 2.2% and Stanbic IBTC Bank 18.8%. However, activity levels on the bourse were seemingly mixed as trading volume surged by 138.5% W/W while trading value dipped by 43.5% W/W.
Sectoral performance was broadly positive as the Consumer Goods Index garnered 12.3% followed by the Banking Index 3.4%, Industrial Goods Index 1.8%, Insurance Index 0.9% and Oil and Gas Index 0.3%.
Analysts at Cordros Research in their reaction on market performance said: “In the week ahead, we expect investors to continue to rotate their portfolios toward stocks of companies that delivered
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