December 24, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s three leading banks swelled in their stock valuations as the equities market hit and crossed the N40 trillion market capitalisation for the first time in the 63 years of the local bourse’s existence.
With its 10th consecutive weekly gain midweek, the market capitalisation opened at N39.657 trillion but closed at N40.164 trillion on Wednesday after gaining N507 billion in Tuesday’s trading. Wednesday’s record was the highest point the market has reached in over 63 years of stock market history.
At the end of the last weekday of trading on Friday, December 22, a total of 423,301,833 shares in 6,333 deals, corresponding to a market value of N16,584,667,838.80, were traded. Compared with the previous NGX trading day (Thursday, December 21), Friday’s data shows 44 percent decline in volume, 27 percent improvement in turnover, but 21 percent decline in deals. The current market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange is N40.5 trillion.
UBA closed its last trading day (Friday, December 22, 2023) at N25.60 per share, recording a 1.5 percent drop from its previous closing price of N26.00. UBA began the year with a share price of N7.60 NGN and has since gained 237 per cent on that price valuation, ranking it 22nd on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance. Analysts expect shareholders to be optimistic about UBA knowing the stock has accrued 23 percent over the past four-week period alone—16th best on NGX.
UBA is the most traded stock on the Nigerian Exchange over the past three months (Sep 25 – Dec 22, 2023).
The stock has traded a total volume of 2.12 billion shares—in 26,424 deals—valued at N43.3 billion over the period, with an average of 33.7 million traded shares per session.
Access Corporation closed its last trading day (Friday, December 22, 2023) at N23.20 per share, recording a 0.4 percent drop from its previous closing price of N23.30.
Access began the year with a share price of N8.50 and has since gained 173 per cent on that price valuation, ranking it 34th on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance. According to analysts, shareholders can be optimistic about Access Corporation stock which has accrued 34 percent over the past four-week period alone..
Access Holdings is the third most traded stock over the past three months (Sep 25 – Dec 22, 2023). The stock has traded a total volume of 1.79 billion shares—in 26,363 deals—valued at N32.5 billion over the period, with an average of 28.4 million traded shares per session.
Zenith Bank Plc closed its last trading day (Friday, December 22, 2023) at N37.90 per share, recording a 1.9 per cent drop from its previous closing price of N38.65. Zenith began the year with a share price of N24.00 and has since gained 57.9 percent on that price valuation, ranking it 72nd on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance. The stock has accrued 9 percent over the past four-week period—31st best on NGX, which will endear it to shareholders.
Zenith Bank is the eighth most traded stock on the Nigerian Exchange over the past three months (Sep 25 – Dec 22, 2023. The stock has traded a total volume of 992 million shares—in 23,467 deals—valued at N34 billion over the period, with an average of 15.7 million traded shares per session.
“We expect bulls to rebound in the coming week amid improved investors’ sentiment,” analysts at Futureview Research said in a note to their investors.
Cowry Research anticipates a continuation of positive sentiment and profit-taking, driven by bargain hunting for dividend-paying stocks.
“Market players are expected to digest the recently published Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) report and its potential impact on the financial market, amidst sector rotation and portfolio rebalancing spurred by the high expectation for full-year corporate numbers and high yields.
“Amidst all these, we maintain our advice to investors on taking positions in stocks with sound fundamentals and whose earnings yield and earnings per share support higher payout ratio.”
