Researchers at Bancorp Securities Limited, one of Nigeria’s economic research and consulting firms, have projected continued doused momentum in the nation’s equities market but then expect investors to marginally gain driven following the release of some of the major banks’ H1’ 2022 earnings.
The experts, in the firm’s ‘Weekly Strong Recommendations: Sept 5th –Sept 9th 2022’ report circulated to our correspondent yesterday, hinged their forecast on the anticipated on the continuity of the lingering macroeconomic headwinds and rising fixed income yields this month.
The report stated: “We anticipate lingering macroeconomic headwinds and rising fixed income yields to continue within the month, and further douse momentum in the equities market, however, we expect the market to gain marginally driven by the release some of the major banks H1’2022 earnings.”
Despite the projected doused momentum in the bourse this week, the firm’s experts still rated some blue chip stocks as strong buy to investors based on the companies’ recent strong financial and other performance indices scorecards.
The stocks include WAPCO (Lafarge Africa Plc), MTNN (MTN Nigeria Plc), ZENITH (Zenith Bank Plc), GTCO (Guaranty Trust Bank Plc), and UBA (United Bank for Africa Plc).
The analysts recalled that at the end of trading sessions last Friday positive sentiments drove N196.7bn gains for Investors as the NGX-ASI crossed the 50,000 points, representing the second consecutive week the market was upbeat driven by sustained positive sentiment.
The experts believed that the positive performance was buoyed by price appreciations witnessed in stocks such as E-TRANZACT (+16%), VITAFOAM (+16%), FIDELITY (+11%), GUINNESS (+10%), and FCMB (+9%).
As a result of the positive performance, the experts noted that the ASI inched upward by 0.73% w/w to cross the 50,000 mark since August 11, 2022 to 50,045.83 points, while market capitalization increased to N26.9tn causing investors to gain N196.7bn w/w, thereby growing the year-to-date (YTD) return to 17.16%.
During the week under review, the level of trading activities in the week was mixed as the total traded volume advanced 30.72% w/w to 1.2bn units while the total traded value plunged by 15.4% w/w to N12.92bn.
A further assessment of the trading trend on sectorial basis reflected a bullish trend across the sectors as all five indices advanced higher.
Bancorp Securities’ experts further noted that the Consumer Goods Index led the gainer’s chart with a 2.01% gain w/w due to price appreciation in VITAFOAM, and GUINNESS, followed by the Industrial Index gaining 1.36% w/w driven by price uptick in WAPCO and BUACEMENT. Similarly, the Banking and Oil and Gas indices appreciated by 1.21% and 0.65% as FIDELITY, FCMB, CONOIL and ETERNA stock prices increase w/w. Also, the Insurance Indices index inched 0.05% w/w.
Overall on month-on-month review, the index finished lower in August as the benchmark index fell 1.1% m/m to 49,836.51 points due to rising yields witnessed in the fixed income market in the month.
Meanwhile, total volume and value traded in August grossed 4.7bn units and N62.4bn respectively. The top traded stocks by volume for the month were MBENEFIT, FBNH, and ZENITH while DANGCEM (N11.7bn), MTNN (N10.8bn), and ZENITH (N10.5bn) led trades by value.
