By Peter Egwuatu
The Nigerian stock market has sustained its positive momentum on Week-on-Week, WoW, as renewed buying interest in blue-chip stocks outweighed widespread profit-taking across the broader market. The benchmark, Nigerian Exchange (NGX) All-Share Index, ASI, closed marginally higher by 0.1% at 245,573.60 points from 245,283.68 the previous week, arising from sustained institutional demand in fundamentally strong banking, consumer goods and energy stocks, even as many medium and small-cap stocks came under selling pressure.
The week’s performance highlighted the resilience of the market despite cautious investor sentiments, while profit-taking remained evident across several sectors following the strong rally recorded in recent months. Another major performance indicator, NGX market capitalisation surged by N187 billion to close at N158.513 trillion from N158.326 trillion the previous week. Meanwhile, analysis of trading last week showed that a total turnover of 5.359 billion shares worth N139.053 billion in 261,869 deals was traded by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 5.119 billion shares valued at N404.762 billion that exchanged hands penultimate week in 285,223 deals.
