Nigerian Stock Exchange Watch: After Consecutive Decline, Market Breathes Sigh of Relief

The Nigerian Stock Exchange breathed a sigh of relief in the session today, coming up for air after drowning into decline for over a week.

The All Share Index gained 13 points today to close at 20,625.56, bringing the weekly performance to -1.77% and the year-to-date performance to -0.51%.

The volume of shares traded today increased by 95%, due to large trades recorded in the shares of Insurance stocks, Sovereign Trust (STI) and Continental Re. Also Courteville Investments saw a huge trade of 40 million plus shares.

The banking sector was predominantly bullish as 7 participants, including Diamond (+4.76%) and Fidelity (+4.62%) recorded gains. UBN (-4.95%) and Stanbic (-4.89% ) were included in the 5 participants that recorded losses after today’s session.

Honeywell (+3.54%), Nascon (+2.20%), and Dangote Sugar (+0.45%) recorded the only gains in the Food & Beverages sub-sector. Cadbury was down (-1.52%).

Here is a snapshot of today’s top gainers:

Here is a snapshot of the trailers category:

Activity in the market was driven wholly by the financial services sector, large volumes from Sovereign Trust, Continental Reinsurance and Courteville Investments helped break the banking sub-sector’s near monopoly on large trading volumes in today’s session.

Fund managers across Europe and other developed markets have indicated that they intend to increase their asset allocations in Africa, especially as regards their exposure to Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. This may therefore be a great time for the skeptics to jump back on the wagon in order to ride the profit waves the foreign capital injections are sure to stir up.