The volume of shares traded last week was boosted by high transactions in the shares of three banks: Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, and Access Holdings Plc. A turnover of 1.8 billion shares worth N52 billion was recorded.
Investors on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) floor performed trading in 38,550 deals, exceeding the N48.7 billion worth of shares that were exchanged in 45,237 deals on March 22.
In observance of Easter, the federal government proclaimed Friday a national holiday, which caused the market to open for four trading days.
Particularly, according to volume, trading in the top three stocks—Guaranty Trust Holding Company, Zenith Bank, and Access Holdings—accounted for 589.9 million shares valued at N23.3 billion over 8,166 transactions, or 32.7% of the entire equity turnover.
With 1.3 billion shares worth N32.9 billion exchanged in 20,897 deals, the financial services sector dominated the activity chart when measured by volume. This sector accounted for 73.7% of the overall stock turnover volume.
The conglomerate sector came next with 2,368 deals totaling 106.7 million shares valued at N1.5 billion. The consumer goods sector came in third place with 4,731 deals totaling 87.7 million shares valued at N4.2 billion.
The bourse saw another muted performance on the price movement chart last week, even though it closed slightly higher in two of the four trading days.
The market capitalization and all-share index closed the week at N59.121 trillion and 104,562.06, respectively, down 0.08 percent. The NGX oil and gas and NGX sovereign bond indexes closed flat, while all other indices ended up. The exceptions were the NGX main board, NGX 30, NGX consumer goods, and NGX growth, which all saw depreciation of 0.28 percent, 0.16 percent, 0.97 percent, and 0.14 percent, respectively.
With month-to-date and year-to-date returns of +4.7 percent and +40 percent, respectively, the decline was caused by sell pressure on FBNH (-8.0 percent) and Dangote Sugar (-11.9 percent).
In comparison to the 10.560 units valued at N131.5 million transacted in 184 deals last week, a total of 20,189 units of Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) priced at N11.3 million were traded in 210 deals.
