Investment watch: Zenith Bank emerges most active stock in August

Zenith Bank Plc has emerged the most active stock traded on the Lagos floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, for the month of August 2013. 

According to a report by Investment One Financial Services in its monthly investment watch for the month of August, “Zenith Bank ruled the market in terms of volume and value of transactions consummated during the month with 554 million shares valued at N11.49 billion exchanging hands in favour of the bank”.

The figure, according to the report, represented 9.13 percent and 16.9 percent of what the entire market traded.

Coming closely in volume terms are Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc, Transcorp, United Bank for Africa Plc, UBA, and FBN Holdings Plc, FBNH, with the volume table of 9.09 percent, 7.45 percent and 6.29 percent respectively.

The report indicated further that next to Zenith Bank on the top value traded chart are Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, GTBank, FBNH and Nigerian Breweries Plc, which accounted for 9.61 percent, 9.26 percent and 8.93 percent of total market value respectively.

The report said volume and value of transactions consummated declined month-on-month as daily trades were dominated by very conservative bid sides.

“From 14.58 billion shares exchanged in July, volume dropped by 58.44 percent to 6.06 billion shares just as transactions value fell by 10 percent to N67.82 billion. On the average, 303 million units of stocks worth N3.391 billion exchanged hands daily, down from 634 million units valued at N3.28 billion in the preceding month”, the report said.

It added that equities suffered as investors exercised caution.

On the all-share index, ASI, the report affirmed that the Nigerian bourse closed in the red during the month as the benchmark index shed 4.39 percent relative to the gain of 4.84 percent recorded in July.

The report further revealed that trading ended negative in 13 out of 20 sessions, thus compressing year –to- date return to 29.1 percent from 35.03 percent last month by the closing bell.

According to the Investment One report, from 38, 292 points on the first trading day of the month, the ASI fell to 37,813 points a week later and then further downward but seemed to form a support around the 36, 200 territory.

“In the 20 days, the ASI traded a high of 38,424 points and finally settled at its low of 36,248.53 points”, the report added.

It showed that as barometers of market activities, all the sector indexes recorded negative returns (-5.08 per cent on average), weakening the average gain of 8.2 percent posted in the preceding month.

“The Oil & Gas component suffered the biggest loss, shedding 8.01 percent on aggregate. The Industrials seconded with a loss of 7.10 percent and was followed by the Consumer Goods index which dipped by 4.73 percent. This shows that it was actually a harvest period for investors as these sectors were incidentally the top gainers (20.85 percent, 11.67 percent and 5.22 percent respectively) last month”, the report noted