Trading on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited sustained bullish sentiment in the just-concluded week.
The All-Share Index rose Week-on-Week by 1.39 per cent to close at 41,438.15 points amid sustained investor interest, especially in the shares of Champion Breweries and FBN Holdings, which rose by 50 per cent and 28 per cent respectively to top the gainers list.
Royal Exchange, International Breweries and Cornerstone Insurance shares followed, appreciating by 12 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
Learn Africa led the losers table with 19 per cent decline, followed by Ikeja Hotel, ABC Transport, UPL and Chams which share prices fell by eight per cent, six per cent, five per cent and four per cent.
Champion had, during the week, announced the proposed mandatory takeover of its minority interest, up to 1,196,799,164 shares, by Raysun Nigeria Limited, a major shareholder of the company.
Given the bargain hunting, positive sentiment reflected across all the sub-sectors tracked. In particular, the banking sector index traded northward by 2.69 per cent to close at 397.89 points.
Similarly, the insurance, consumer goods, oil and gas and industrial indices rose by 1.60 per cent, 0.47 per cent, 0.64 per cent and 0.98 per cent to close at 173.15, 566.96, 370.53 and 2,112.12 points respectively.
Also, given the huge transaction value of about N7bn worth of FBNH shares that exchanged hands at the close of trading on Thursday, October 14, market activity was positive.
Financial Street reported in the previous week that market analysis showed FBNH shares came up strong, rising by 24 per cent WoW amid increased transaction value of over N1bn worth of its shares that exchanged hands.
Same in the week under review, market volume and the value of stocks traded jumped by 30.24 per cent and 44.12 per cent to 2.84 billion units and N31.65bn.
Nigeria’s September inflation rate had moderated to 16.63 per cent and given the decline in 364-day treasury bills rate. The Central Bank of Nigeria sold T-bills worth N187.23bn to mop up matured bills worth N121.66bn, in the week under review.
Meanwhile, the naira depreciated against the greenback by 0.19 per cent to close at N415.07/USD at the Investors and Exporters forex window despite the 3.77 per cent W-o-W accretion to the external reserves, which closed at $39.62bn on Thursday, October 14, 2021. While the naira/dollar exchange rate rose (naira depreciated) by 0.79 per cent at the parallel market to close at N572/$, NGN/USD rate closed flat at N380.69/$ at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market amid weekly injections of $210m by CBN into the forex market.
Back on the domestic stocks, analysts at Cowry Asset Management said they “expect the NGX index to close in green, even as companies begin to release 2021 nine months’ results, “which we anticipate to be largely positive,” in the new week.
