The Nigerian equities market ended last week on a positive note, appreciating by N837 billion as gains in a few stocks helped to lift overall performance.
The market capitalisation of listed equities rose by 0.65 per cent week on week to N129.806 trillion from N128.969 recorded the previous week, driven by the additional listing of 21.183 billion ordinary shares from FCMB and 5.07 billion ordinary shares from VFD Group.
The NGX All Share Index also grew by 785.83 basis points to 201698.89 points from 200913.06 reported the preceding week.
Trading activity slowed down last week compared to the previous week as the trading volume, and total value traded fell by 60.62 per cent, and 65.94 week-on-week, respectively while the deals appreciated by 83.89 per cent.
Investors traded a total of 3.950 billion shares worth N201.312 billion across 359.642 deals, against 8.761 million shares worth N267.253 billion traded in 193,473 deals in the preceding week.
However, market breadth was negative with 29 advancers against 57 decliners indicating that despite the overall market growth, more stocks actually recorded losses during the week.
An analysis of the trading for the week showed that Multiverse led gainers table with a 20.7 per cent, followed by UPDC REIT with a gain of 15.5 per cent.
International General Insurance also added 12.5 per cent, AustinLaz increased by 10.5 per cent while Unilever gained 10.0 per cent.
Conversely, NSLTech topped losers chart, dropping by 21.5 per cent, JohnHolt trailed with a loss of 18.5 per cent, May and Baker declined by 16.6 per cent, Alex Plc fell by 16.3 per cent and Legend Internet dropped by 16.0 as investors sustained profit-taking activities and selling pressure.
On the sectoral performance the banking, oil and gas, and commodities indices recorded marginal gains of 0.71 per cent, 0.02 per cent, and 0.01 per cent respectively, supported by targeted buying interest in stocks such as GTCO Plc, Eterna, JapaulGold, Zichis, and FCMB group.
