While the Lockdown remains in place across states in the Country, business activities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange resumed the week on a positive note, as mild increases in shares of MTNN (+0.9%) and some Tier 1 banks’ led to the first gain of the week.
Specifically, the All-Share Index increased by 0.1% to 22,616.28 points. Accordingly, Month-to-date gain increased to 6.2% as Year-to-Date losses moderated to -15.7%.
The total volume of trades decreased by 48.9% to 108.12 million units, valued at NGN1.33 billion and exchanged in 3,354 deals.
LASACO was the most traded stock by volume at 13.54 million units while DANGCEM was the most traded stock by value at NGN328.84 million.
Analyzing by sectors, the Consumer Goods saw a decline of -1.9%, Insurance (-0.3%), and Industrial Goods (-0.04%), while the Banking sector gained (+1.1%) and Oil and Gas followed with a gain of 0.4%.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was positive (0.6x), as 13 tickers declined, relative to 8 gainers. NB (-10.0%) and TRANSCORP (-5.4%) were the top losers of the day, while LASACO (+8.3%) and CHAMS (+4.8%) were the top gainers of the day.
Analysts advise on the need for investors to trade cautiously and seek only fundamentally justified stock as risks remain on the horizon following the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Nigeria.