In the just concluded week, the Nigerian equities market index halted its downtrend having traded on a bullish note in all five trading days.
We saw renewed positive sentiment amid positive Q1 2021 Financial Results releases by corporates. Consequently, the NSE ASI increased week-on-week by 1.27% to close at 38,808.01 points.
Specifically, the NSE Banking index gained 4.82% to close at 359.57 points amid rising share prices of UBA, GUARANTY and STANBIC.
Similarly, performance across the remaining sub-sector gauges tracked closed in green zone; the NSE Insurance, NSE Consumer Goods, NSE Oil/Gas and the NSE Industrial indices rose by 0.40%, 1.05%, 0.29% and 0.50% to 194.12 points, 558.45 points, 265.65 points and 1,902.76 points respectively.
Meanwhile, trading activity was mixed as total volume and value of stocks traded increased by 22.26% and 284.04% to 1.53 billion units and N41.31 billion respectively. However, total deals traded fell by 5.79% to 18,812 deals.
In the new week, we expect the domestic equities market to trade sideways even as Q1 2021 financial results roll in. As the financial results are released, investors are likely to tweak their positions in favour of companies that print good increases in earnings with the possibility of a high dividend payout ratio.
