Rounding up the month of April, equities trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange added marginal 6Bpts and closed at 41,268.56 from 41,244.89. It was a mixed performance amongst the observed market indices as shown in the index movement table. In all, trading activities through the month of April slashed off 57Bpts off market trading point MoM. See the index movement table for details.
Value gained by the market capitalization of the listed equities during today’s trading activities was N8.375 billion, same as 6Bpts below the opening value. Meanwhile, trading activities for the day produced 19 advancers and 18 lagers. NSEASI Year to Date gain is now 7.91% while the Market Capitalization Year to Date gain stood at N1.339 trillion same as 9.84% above the year’s opening value.
The month of April commenced with the spillover of full year earnings season of companies with December financial year. The reactions of investors to various financial performances were negative despite positive earnings. In our opinion, the move could be linked to the fact that most investors positioned in these equities as far back as December, 2017 in anticipation of taking advantage of price surge during earnings season. Further encouraging the exits is the outstanding bullish move that visited the year 2018. The negative trend was eventually paused as few equities approached attractive prices. More so, the release of the first quarter earnings, favorable outcome of the first MPC meeting, and improved headline inflation figure for the month of March further helped in silencing the downtrend.
Ordinarily, the above mentioned are strong fundamental boosts capable of encouraging healthy recovery around the market arena, but due to investors’ anxiety over the upcoming national election, heightened indecision took over the market and sideway trend replaced the expected uptrend through the month of April.
As we have consistently noted in most of our reports during the month, a major support was sighted around 40,465.80 point, this is where we expect a rebound. We maintained that traders should keep buying in tranches into various equities of choice. Safe Trade.
By: Jeariogbe Tunde Segun
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