Bancorp Securities Limited, one of Nigeria’s investment research and consulting companies, has predicted that the momentum in the nation’s equities market may be sustained this week given the lingering macroeconomic headwinds in the investment clime.
The investment experts made this projection in the firm’s ‘Weekly Stock Recommendations: Aug 01- Aug 05, 2022’ and stated that despite the headwinds, the market will record marginal gains spurred by the release of more positive half year 2022 earnings by listed companies.
The analysts stated: “In August, we anticipate lingering macroeconomic headwinds and rising fixed income yields which may continue to douse momentum in the equities market, however, we expect the market to gain marginally driven by the release of more positive H1’2022 earnings.
According to the experts, stocks rated for buy during this week’s trading sessions are ZENITHBANK, ACCESSCORP, UCAP, WAPCO, UBA, TRANSCORP, FLOURMILL, STANBIC, MANSARD, and NASCON. Others include, GTCO, NB, NESTLE, MTN FIDSON, and UNILEVER.
Meanwhile, they noted that the equities market closed trading activities for previous week on a negative note amid sell off in bellwether stocks, thereby leading to 3.10% dip in the market’s All Share Index (ASI) w/w to 50,370.25 points.
This also led to the market capitalisation shedding N868 billion to N27.1 trillion while the market’s year-to-date (YTD) return weakened to 17.92% from 21.7%
However, trading activity improved as total volume and value traded rose 67.94% and 10.0% w/w respectively to 1.55bn units and N16.29 billion.
The top traded stocks by volume were International Energy Insurance Plc (637.1m units), Transcorp Hotels Plc (89.2m units), and Zenith Bank Plc (72.5m units), while MTNN (N4.2bn), AIRTEL (N1.7bn) and ZENITH (N1.5bn), led trade by value.
A further analysis of the trading showed that on Sectoral performance, major indices finished lower with the NGX Insurance and consumer Goods indices losing by 4.96% w/w 4.64% w/w respectively on the back of a price decline MANSARD, LASACO, AIICO, PZ CADBURY and NESTLE.
The Banking and Oil and Gas indices dipped by 0.43% w/w and 0.95% w/w following decline in price of WEMABANK, GTCO, ZENITH, ETERNA and ARDOVA. The Industrial Index also finished lower at 0.22% w/w.
On the month-on-month trend, as a result of extended negative sentiment from the prior month, the domestic market closed the month of July in the negative region as the benchmark index fell 2.8% m/m (June: -2.21%) to 50,370.25 points.
The average volume and value traded in the month under review grossed 172.0m units and N2.6bn units respectively. The top traded stocks by volume for the month were TRANSCORP, GTCO, and UBA while MTNN (N21.6bn), GTCO (N5.9bn), and ZENITH (N4.3bn) led the trade by value.
