A major driver of the Nigerian stock market’s impressive 18.95% return in the third quarter of 2025 was the strong performance of a select group of heavyweight stocks known as SWOOTs.
In Q3, 9 out of 22 SWOOTs gained more than 20%, while 16 advanced between 15% and 20%.
Altogether, 17 of them closed the quarter in the green, highlighting the breadth of positive sentiment among Nigeria’s largest corporates.
By definition, SWOOTs (an acronym for Stocks Worth Over One Trillion Naira) are companies whose market capitalization exceeds N1 trillion.
Given their enormous influence, any sustained movement in SWOOTs tends to shape the overall market direction.
Hence, their impressive showing in Q3 was powerful enough to lift the Nigerian All-Share Index to its third-best quarterly performance since 2020.
This work ranks the top 10 best-performing SWOOTs in Q3 2025, focusing on share price appreciation rather than size, with each company maintaining a market capitalization above N1 trillion.
Here are the top 10 best-performing SWOOTs:
First HoldCo Plc ranks 9th with a 21.15% return in Q3 and is one of three Tier-1 banks on the list.
As of September 30, the company had a market capitalization of N1.32 trillion, with 41,877,841,591 outstanding shares listed on the NGX.
The stock began the quarter at N26, trading 1.1 billion shares, its highest quarterly volume of the year, before closing at N31.50.
Most of the surge came in July, when the price climbed above N30, up 24%. Despite a mild 3.08% decline in September, the stock maintained its strength through the quarter-end.
- In its Q2 2025 financials, First HoldCo reported a pretax profit of N169.6 billion, down 4.58% year-on-year, bringing H1 pretax profit to N356.1 billion.
- Interest income surged 61.92% to N812.1 billion in Q2 from N501.5 billion a year earlier, lifting H1 interest income to N1.4 trillion.
Year to date, the stock is up 10.3%, with earlier weakness in H1 limiting overall performance.
