Nigerian Stocks Rise as Fears over Naira Assets Grow
The Nigerian stock market halted the downward trend on Thursday after three consecutive days of selling rallies in the local bourse as private investors’ fears over holding naira assets grow. Today, equity investors gained N298.7 billion, thus lifting market capitalisation higher to N28.7 trillion.
Market data shows that demand for bellwether stocks raised the Nigerian Exchange index above 53,000 levels and year to date returns widened after the previous day’s selloffs seen in the domestic bourse.
With headline inflation rising to 16.82%, the negative real return on fixed income instruments has widened as the market awaits catalysts to drive momentum. For what it is worth, the high inflation rate has continued to weaken the local currency.
The Nigerian Exchange, a part of financial markets, where investors could earn higher returns on investment due to higher risk-taking was trading hot and red in the last three days amidst pressures on the naira.
The local currency has been free-falling due to the pre-election ramping up of the United States dollar in the foreign exchange markets – both official and parallel market rates have seen negative adjustment this week.
Today, the equities market inched upward, as stocks snapped a three-day selloff on bargain buying in MTNN (+5.7%) stocks. Precisely, the Nigerian All-Share Index inched higher by 1.1% to 53,275.49 points.
Accordingly, the month-to-date and year-to-date returns increased to +7.3% and +24.7%, respectively – a level seen last pre-financial crisis in 2008. Today, the total volume of trades declined by 55.1% to 274.56 million units, valued at NGN8.45 billion, and exchanged in 5,184 deals, stockbrokers’ notes show.
TRANSCORP was the most traded stock by volume at 48.38 million units’
MTNN was the most traded stock by value at NGN5.49 billion. Sectoral performance was broadly negative, as the Insurance (-1.3%), Oil & Gas (-0.8%), Banking (-0.8%), and Consumer Goods (-0.2%) indices recorded losses, while the Industrial Goods (+0.1%) index posted gains.
On the contrary, market sentiment was negative as 28 tickers lost relative to 20 gainers, according to data from the Nigerian Exchange.
On the top of the losers’ chart were CONOIL sheds 10.0% of its opening share price and ETERNA lost 9.6%. Meanwhile, TRANSCOHOT gained 9.9%, followed closely by BETAGLAS whose share jumped 9.7% to becoming the highest gainer for the day. #Nigerian Stocks Rise as Fears over Naira Assets Grow
