ANALYSTS in the capital market have said that the equities market will record bouts of gains this week after a mixed performance in the last week of December.
The market had recorded two days of down-trend in the holiday shortened week after notching up by huge 3.9 percent on Monday in consolidation of gains of the previous week.
Breakdown of transaction in the stock market showed that the major equities indicator – the All Share Index, ASI, went up by 3.9 percent on Monday to close at 31,967.01 points from from 30,773.64 points. It, however, trended downward on Thursday by 0.86 percent and went further down by 2.1 percent on Friday, but the two days losses were not enough to offset the gains recorded on Monday as the market closed higher at 0.86 percent at the end of the week.
In the same vein, the equities capitalisation, which also opened the week with huge gain of N436 billion, declined in the last two days of the week by N101 billion and N239 billion on Thursday and Friday respectively.
Nonetheless, investment experts have said that the market will reverse the losing trend today being the last day in 2018 and continue in the same vein for the rest of the week.
According to analysts at Vetiva Capital Management, the market is expected to close the final trading days of the year on a positive note with investors likely to continue to take positions in under-valued stocks. “We expect a positive session to close out the year and anticipate heightened activity levels,” they said.
Also, analysts at Cowry Asset Management, said: “We expect the NSE All Share Index to marginally close in green territory as investors, especially portfolio managers, hunt for undervalued stocks to cut down on their average prices or add new stocks to their portfolios cheaply.”