October 13, (THEWILL) – The Nigerian equities market ended on a positive note on Friday, October 11, triggered by investors’ huge interest in
Blue-chip stocks like the Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO), among others.
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited reports that the active move in the GTCO stock was mainly responsible for the rise in the banking sector index which was the best during the week.
The week’s stock performance tracked by THEWILL showed that GTCO stock which opened with N49.00 per share on Monday, October 7, dropped to N47.20 on Tuesday where it remained flat through Wednesday before hitting N47.95 on Thursday.
GTCO closed its last trading day for the week on Friday, October 11, 2024 at N49.00 per share, recording a 2.2 per cent gain over its previous closing price of N47.95.
According to data by NGX, the GTCO stock which began the year with a share price of N40.50 has since gained 21 per cent on that price valuation year-to-date (Y-t-D)), ranking it 59th on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance.
“Shareholders can be optimistic about GTCO knowing the stock has accrued 8% over the past four-week period—39th best on NGX.
Guaranty Trust Holding is the seventh most traded stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange over the past three months (Jul 15 – Oct 11, 2024)”, the NGX reports.
GTCO has traded a total volume of 1.39 billion shares—in 22,808 deals—valued at NGN 63.7 billion over the period, with an average of 22.1 million traded shares per session.
A glean on the market’s movement showed that a volume high of 124 million was achieved on August 12, and a low of 1.6 million on September 17, for the same period.
A total turnover of 2.966 billion shares worth N31.508 billion in 42,482 deals was traded last week by investors on the floor of the Exchange buoyed by fortune-hunters’ thirst for GTCO shares among others, in contrast to a total of 2.872 billion shares valued at N132.811 billion that exchanged hands the previous week in 39,867 deals.
On the back of the impressive performance of GTCO, the financial services industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.485 billion shares valued at N17.965 billion traded in 19,613 deals; thus contributing 50.05 per cent and 57.02 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value, respectively.
The services industry followed with 1.108 billion shares worth N775.258 million in 2,675 deals. Third place was the agriculture industry, with a turnover of 93.904 million shares worth N1.250 billion in 2,517 deals.
Trading in top four equities including GTCO Plc, Tantaliser Plc, Coronation Insurance Plc and Fidelity Bank Plc constituted the boost in the week’s performance.
The NGX All-Share Index and market capitalization appreciated by 0.09% to close the week at 97,606.63 basis points and N56.088 trillion respectively.
THEWILL reports that GTCO reported an impressive result in its H1 2024 performance, posting a profit before tax of N1.004 trillion. By this, it became the first Nigerian financial institution to cross the N1 trillion mark in profit. This milestone figure represents an increase of 206.6 per cent over N327.4billion recorded in the corresponding period ended June 2023.
The Group’s loan book (net) increased by 25.5 per cent from N2.48trillion recorded as at December 2023 to N3.11trillion in June 2024, while deposit liabilities grew by 39.8 per cent from N7.55trillion in December 2023 to N10.55trillion as of the end of June 2024.
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
