The Nigerian All-Share Index posted a gain of 9.1% in the month of January, its best January return in about four years. Stocks have now posted positive returns in January for the third year running.
Nigerian stocks have braced against all odds facing global markets to post double-digit returns as investors poured into large-cap stocks pushing the total market valuation of stocks into N25.1 trillion from N22.29 trillion, a N2.9 trillion gain.
A major driver for the performance of equities was the SWOOTs representing Stocks Worth Over One Trillion naira only. With the addition of BUA Foods and the gains recorded by Airtel, Dangote Cement and MTN, SWOOTs saw their market cap rise to N17.7 trillion, about 70.5% of the total market capitalization of the stock exchange.
January dynamics
- BUA Foods listed during the month strengthening the size of one of Nigeria’s indigenous conglomerates to a combined N3.5 trillion.
- BUA Foods gained 60% in January making it the second highest gainer on the exchange.
- BUA Cement also gained 6% during the month while Dangote Cement and MTN closed flat.
- However, Airtel also recorded large gains adding a whopping 33% to its market share helping it to the status of the most capitalized stock on the exchange.
- A total of 65 stocks gained out of which 33 posted double digit gains.
- Notable gainers also include Guinness, Wema Bank, Seplat all of which recorded over 20% gains during the month.
- Nigerian bank index was also the best performer ending the month with over 8% gain.
- All the major banks (except Unity Bank) posted gains with Ecobank, Wema, Jaiz and Sterling Banks leading the pack with 44%, 22%, 21% and 15% pop respectively.
Who is buying?
- Nairametrics intelligence suggests a lot of the bullish trends recorded in January were mostly related party dominated dealings.
- Most of the leading gainers have limited liquidity and experience shows stocks like that are driven by other motives asides from fundamentals. Suffice to add that results just started trickling in towards the end of the month.
- We also attribute some of the bullish trends to equity positioning by investors looking to earn profits from share buyback announcements made by Dangote Cement and Airtel Africa which acquired its Nigerian subsidiary.
Upshots
Dating back to 2018, Nigerians stocks have ended February on a negative note every year January has been positive. The year 2019 was an exception and in that month, stocks ended January in negative territory.