BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
In the last trading session of the week, the local bourse extended losses as the All-Share Index declined by 0.33 percent to close at 54,232.34 points.
Profit in telco heavyweight, AIRTELAFRI (+4.15%) was offset by selloffs in Tier-1 banking names, ZENITHBANK (-0.19%), GTCO (-0.20%) and FBNH (-0.45%). Having lost in three (3) out of the five (5) trading sessions this week, the ASI closed 1.20 percent lower week on week.
Over the course of the week, AIRTELAFRI (-4.50% w/w), DANGCEM (-6.25% w/w) and SEPLAT (-4.17% w/w) were the major drags on the broader index offsetting gains in MTNN (+1.69% w/w), BUAFOODS (+3.03% w/w) and ZENITHBANK (3.61% w./w) .
Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 5.82 percent, while the market capitalization shed N359.65 billion w/w to close at N29.54 trillion.
For the first quarter in 2023, the top three (3) performing stocks were GEREGU (+116.80%), BUAFOODS (+56.9%) and OANDO (+45.40%) while the top laggards were NB (-9.8%), AIRTELAFRI (-9.5%) and ARDOVA (-7.3%). Performances across the NGX sub-indices were positive as the NGX Consumer Goods (+19.15%) sub-index led the gainers, followed by NGX Oil/Gas (+10.45%), NGX Banking (+8.50%), NGX Pension (+6.35%), NGX-30 (+6.24%), NGX Industrial Goods (+6.05%) and NGX Insurance (+1.81%) sub-indices.
Analysis of Friday’s market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 12.93%.
A total of 557.93million shares valued at N3.68 billion were exchanged in 3,943 deals. TRANSCORP (-7.33%) led the volume chart with 287.68 million units traded, while NGXGROUP (-1.79%) led the value chart in deals worth N685.07 million.
Market breadth closed positive at a 1.09-to-1 ratio with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones. UACN (+9.14%) topped eleven (11) others on the leader’s log, while TRANSCORP (-7.33%) led ten (10) others on the laggard’s table.
