…ASI YtD return hits 26.8%
The bulls continued to dominate market activities on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) last week, as the main market indicator, the All-Share Index (ASI) closed in the positive territory in four out of the five trading days in the week that ended 21st July 2023.
The ASI hit a new year high at 65,003.39 points compared with 60,968.27 points at the end of June 2023, bringing the month-to-date appreciation in ASI to 6.62 percent while ASI’s year-to-date return increased to 26.8 percent.
Market capitalization of listed equities rose to N35.394 trillion as of July 21, compared with N33.197 trillion at half year, and N27.915 trillion as of December 31, 2022. This effectively means that the month-to-date appreciation in equities stood at N2.197 trillion as of July 21, 2023, whereas the year-to-date gain in market capitalization rose to N7.479 trillion.
Other sectoral indices with impressive year-to-date returns include the NGX Oil/Gas Index, which returned 83.35 percent as of June 21, 2023. Others are the NGX-AFR Bank Value Index, which returned 74,21 percent and the NGX AFR Div Yield Index, which returned 74.51 percent, among others.
Analysts have attributed recent bullish runs to investors positioning for the half year rally as listed companies are expected to release their half year unaudited financial statements for the period ended 30 June 2023.
The positive market sentiment caused more stocks to appreciate in price compared to the previous week.
“Seventy-three (73) equities appreciated in price during the week, higher than twenty-nine (29) equities in the previous week. Nineteen (19) equities depreciated in price lower than seventy-seven (77) in the previous week, while sixty-four (64) equities remained unchanged, higher than fifty (50) recorded in the previous week,” NGX stated in its weekly report.
