Nigeria’s equities market advanced by 0.24percent in the trading week ended March 6, driven by investors’ interest in banking stocks.
Before now, the market had gone on a losing streak as investors restructured their portfolio to safe-haven over the possible damaging effect of Coronavirus on company’s performance. Following the outbreak of Coronavirus in Nigeria, some analysts had anticipated a sustained downtrend in the review trading week, despite bargain hunting opportunities.
Amid this fear, the review week witnessed influx of full year (FY) 2019 scorecards of most notable counters in the banking sector. The banking sector is the highest paying sector in terms of dividend.
Ahead of the banks’ dividend qualification dates, their stocks continued to enjoy investors’ patronage on the Nigerian Bourse which led to the value of equities listed on the NSE to increase by about N36billion.
NSE Banking Index which provides an investable benchmark that captures the performance of the banking sector increased most by 3.78percent in the review trading week. NSE Banking Index comprises the most capitalised and liquid companies in banking.
Other sectoral indexes and their performances this week are: NSE 30 Index (+0.12percent), NSE Consumer Goods Index (-5.87percent), NSE Industrial Good Index (-4.27percent), NSE Insurance Index (+1.40percent), NSE Oil & Gas (+0.80percent), and NSE Pension (-0.91percent).
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index increased by 0.24percent from week open low of 26,216.46 points to 26,279.61 points; while the value of listed equities increased by N36billion to N13.694trillion, from a low of N13.658 trillion at the beginning of the week.
