By volume, the Nigerian Exchange Limited floor transactions from last week were dominated by the financial services sector (NGX).
With 491.3 million shares valued at N4.499 billion moved in 9,961 trades, it topped the activity leaderboard. As a result, it made up 59.7% of the overall equity turnover and value.
The consumer goods business came in third with a turnover of 55.052 million shares worth N855.3 million in 3,093 trades, followed by the conglomerate industry with 81.7 million shares worth N218.3 million in 605 deals.
Trading in the top three stocks, Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, and Transnational Corporation Plc, contributed 29.7% of the total equity turnover with 244 million shares worth N2.7 billion in 3,732 trades.
Investors transacted 822.4 million shares worth N10.4 billion in 20,643 transactions, which is less than the 1.348 billion units worth N24.5 billion that were transacted in 22,155 transactions on July 1, 2022.
7,158 shares worth N1.53 million were traded last week in 17 deals, compared to 5,099 units worth N267,772.87 traded last week in a total of 17 trades.
Additionally, 156,646 units worth N158.7 million were traded in 41 deals as opposed to 163,232 units worth N167.5 million that were all transacted in 32 deals previous week.
The market capitalization and NGX All-share index both decreased by 0.53 percent to end the week at 51,557.41 and N27.803 trillion, respectively.
All other indices, with the exception of the NGX AFR bank value index, which rose by 0.38 percent and the NGX ASeM and NGX Sovereign Bond indices, closing flat, also ended lower.
The weekly loss was mostly driven by sell-offs in International Breweries (-14.3%), UBN (-9.8%), FBNH (-8.6%), FCMB (-7.5%), and NASCON (-6.4%).
An analyst at Codros stated: “We expect knowledgeable investors to take advantage of this week’s dip in bellwether stock prices and make re-entry ahead of the H1-22 earnings season.
“However, we do not completely rule out future profit-taking actions. We predict that the local bourse will likely display a choppy pattern as a result. As a result, we urge investors to exclusively invest in blue chip companies.
“We note the movement of money into the fixed income segment on the rate hike by the CBN, as sector rotation continued and participants assess the macro-economic data and Q4 unaudited results disclosed so far,” Investdata Consulting Limited said in a statement.
Along with profit-taking and portfolio rebalancing, the market also continues to interpret the growing inflation as relating to the price of crude oil and other things. Market participants will consequently target reliable, dividend-paying stocks in the anticipation of dividend announcements.
