Nigerian Stocks ended the second trading session of the week on a positive note. The All Share Index gained 0.30% to close at 35,147.62 basis points as against +0.45% appreciation recorded on Monday. Its Year-to-Date (YTD) returns currently stands at +30.94%.

Nigerian Stock Exchange capitalization stands at N18.364 Trillion. Investors gained N55.17 billion.

• Nigerian Stocks trading turnover dipped lower at Tuesday’s trading session on the basis that volume dipped by 25.83% as against +118.38% uptick recorded in the previous session.
• ACCESS, FBNH, and MBENEFIT were the most active to boost market turnover.
• The Market breadth closed negative as CAVERTON led 15 Gainers as against 21 Losers topped by CORNERST at the end of today’s session – an unimproved performance when compared with the previous outlook.
• PRESTIGE leads the list of active stocks that recorded an impressive volume spike at the end of today’s session.

Top gainers

CAVERTON up 9.88% to close at N1.89
CUTIX up 9.80% to close atN1.68
GUARANTY up 5.42% to close at N35
ZENITHBANK up 1.67% to close at N24.4
SEPLAT up 0.40% to close at N402.3

Top losers

FCMB down 3.60% to close at N3.21
GUINNESS down 2.91% to close at N18.35
PZ down 2.00% to close at N4.9
FLOURMILL down 0.90% to close at N27.6
MTNN down 0.13% to close at N155

Outlook

Nigerian stocks recorded gains amid falling oil prices prevailing at the US trading session on Tuesday.

• Major gains by large capitalized stocks that include GTBank, Zenith Bank, Seplat added gains to the Nigerian Stock market capitalization.
• Nairametrics envisages cautious buying amid significant price volatility currently in play at the Nigerian Stock market.

Guaranty Trust Bank Plc has retained its market capitalization of N977.12 billion on the local bourse, after crossing the N1 trillion mark amid renewed buying interests in November.

• At the close of trade yesterday, the last trading session in the month of November, the market capitalization of the bank stood at N977,115,150,236.80.
• The shares of the bank closed at N33.2 per share, with total shares outstanding is 29,431,179,224.

The drive behind these gains

Buying interests in the shares of the bank were renewed as a result of the long-term fundamental strength of the bank, its impressive financial results in the third quarter of 2020, as well as, the expectations of the bank’s transition into a Holding Company structure.

A structure that will enable the bank to look into other businesses outside its core business segment, such as payment, asset management, and pension fund administration, in a bid to boost the company’s intrinsic value and returns to shareholders.

This reality and expectation, coupled with the optimism from the Covid-19 vaccines and the bearish state of the money market in the month of November, triggered buying interests in the shares of the bank, as the market capitalization of the bank crossed the N1trillion mark in November.

However, widespread profit-taking and portfolio rotation by institutional investors on NSE, led to the retracement of the bank’s market capitalization to the tune of N977billion to close below the trillion-naira mark in November.

(READ MORE: GTBank shores Nigerian stocks up)

What you should know

At the start of 2020, the widespread pessimism over the performance of equities due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy and performance of equities in the global markets, which impacted the Nigerian Stock Exchange, triggered a huge sell-off on the local bourse in the month of March.

This development affected the valuation of companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, as their share prices declined markedly.

• During this period the share price of GT Bank plummeted, owing to the huge sell-offs by investors on the NSE.
• The market capitalization of the bank fell below N660 billion in March 2020 as a result.
• Market capitalization is the aggregate valuation of a company, based on its current share price and the total number of outstanding stocks.
• Market capitalization tells how much investors value a company, and gives an idea of what a company is worth on the stock exchange, as well as investors’ perception of a company’s future prospects.

In 2016, Bitcoin worth billions of dollars was stolen from the Bitfinex crypto exchange. Recently, cyber robbers moved some of the loots between wallets, as seen by Nairametrics.

• Data retrieved from Blockchain data revealed an unknown crypto robbery mob has moved 270.97974 Bitcoin from a wallet associated with the Bitcoin robbery.
• The sum is estimated to be worth over $5 million at the time of writing this publication.
• The wallet address 1GytseWXyzGpmHkcv9uDzkU9D8pLaGyR5x is linked to the cyber robbery that occurred in 2016.

What you should know

• In 2016, a top official at Bitfinex, in a statement credited to Reuters, disclosed that 119,756 Bitcoins were stolen from users’ accounts.
• To date, the BTC robbers responsible for these heist have only been able to move only 1-2% of the funds from the exchange.
• It should be noted that Bitcoin is not really anonymous, because all BTC transactions are kept permanently and publicly on the blockchain or ledger system. So, it’s very easy for anyone to see the transactions and balances of any BTC address.

What this means

Blockchain security and security agencies have flagged the BTC wallets containing the stolen BTCs, making it very difficult to move the 119,756 BTC without being noticed.