Stock traders await Nigeria’s big banks’ earnings

The Nigerian bourse ended the last trading week cumulatively on a bullish note. The All-Share Index and Market Capitalization appreciated by 1.56 and 1.59% respectively to close the week at 31,016.17, and N16.207 trillion respectively.

• Forty (40) equities appreciated at price during the week, lower than sixty-eight (68) equities in the previous week.
• Twenty-four (24) equities depreciated in price, higher than Six (6) equities in the previous week.
• Ninety-seven (97) equities remained unchanged, higher than ninety-four (94) recorded in the previous week.
• Nigerian bourse ended the week bullish W/W. In spite of the strong volatility seen lately in global financial markets, Nigerian investors increased their buying pressure across the market spectrum, pushing the All Share Index to its highest point this year, as it hovered above N16 trillion.

In the coming week, stock traders including institutional investors’ would focus their attention on earning results particularly from Tier 1 banks – GTBank, Zenith Bank, Access Bank, First Bank, to be released on the floor of Nigeria’s Stock Exchange.

On the global scene Stephen Innes, Chief Global Market Strategist at Axi, in a note to Nairametrics, spoke on expectations at the global equity market for the coming week,

“More limited fiscal stimulus than under the expected ‘blue wave’ election put more pressure on the US Federal Reserve, which cannot vaccinate the global economy from the negative economic fallout from the virus, but can create a bridge to a post-vaccine environment.

“Risk markets are pricing out more elections uncertainty, as downside hedges uniformly topple like dominoes across the board at the Monday open in Asia – as local markets look to trade higher today after the Biden election victory confirmed over the weekend

“Risk assets performed strongly last week across the board, coming up from a pre-US election low base. Many investors took chips off the table ahead of what was expected to be a long US Presidential election race.”

Bottom-line

At the Nigerian Stock Market, high volatility is anticipated on the bias that the Banking index remains by far the most liquid and traded on the Nigerian Stock Market  In the near term, stock traders are expected to hunt for alpha-yielding stocks amid very low returns prevailing at Nigeria’s debt market.