Nigerian stocks advanced 1.45% w-o-w as tech stocks boost Wall Street to record highs

Nigerian equities Friday appreciated 0.32 percent to close benchmark index at 36,848.17 basis points as against 36,320.93 points last week, which represents 1.45 percent improved performance week-on-week.

This is just as technology stocks boost Wall Street to record highs. Particularly, a jump in Apple and other technology stocks sent the three major Wall Street indexes to record highs on Friday, but a drop in health insurers and hospital operators kept the rally in check.

On the Nigerian bourse, Friday’s performance was an improvement on the 0.22 percent appreciation recorded previously.

Year-to-date (YTD) gain settled at 37.11 percent while market capitalization stood at N12.683 trillion up by 1.44 percent from the N12.502 trillion it stood last Friday

Market turnover closes negative as volume moved down by -64.02% as against +31.89% uptick recorded in the previous session. DIAMONDBNK, ACCESS  and TRANSCORP  were the most active to boost market turnover. STANBIC  and GUINNESS  topped market value list.

Specifically a total of 159.6 million units were traded in 3,243 deals, while value of stocks traded came to N2.24 trillion

Top gainers include INTERBREW (1.99%), WAPCO (1.5%), STANBIC (0.81%), GUINNESS (0.75%) and NESTLE (0.5%).

Top losers were FO (-2.00%), CCNN(-0.5%), DANGCEM (-0.5%), DANSUGAR (-0.16%) and UPL (-0.11%).

Market breadth closed positive as INTERBREW led 28 Gainers as against 13 losers, topped by FO at the end of Friday’s session- an unimproved performance when compared with previous outlook.

FIRSTALUM leads the list of active stocks that recorded impressive volume spike at the end of the session.

On Wall Street, shares of big banks were little changed after mixed reports from Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Bank of America (BAC.N), the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets, rose 1.4 percent after the lender’s profit topped estimates due to higher interest rates and a drop in costs.

But Wells Fargo (WFC.N) tumbled more than three percent, set for its biggest drop since mid-April, after reporting lower-than-expected revenue for the fourth straight quarter due to a decline in mortgage banking revenue.

The reports from the Wall Street banks kicked off the third-quarter earnings season, with investors hoping profit growth will help justify valuations after a rally that has sent the S&P 500 up about 14 percent so far this year.

“Because of the reach that financials have into the economy, the market likes to see it’s what earnings are reflecting, be it on loan growth, it’s really trying to look at the health of the economy,” Nana Adae, global investment specialist, J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Chicago.

The market got a boost earlier in the day after data showed retail sales surged by the most in 2-1/2 years in September, while consumer prices recorded their biggest increase in eight months as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma boosted demand.

At 12:39 a.m. ET (1639 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was up 37.69 points, or 0.17 percent, at 22,878.7, the S&P 500 .SPX was up 4.82 points, or 0.19 percent, at 2,555.75 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 19.50 points, or 0.3 percent, at 6,611.01.

That set the S&P and the Dow on track to close higher for the fifth straight week and the Nasdaq for the third.

Six of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, led by a 0.7 percent gain in the technology index .SPLRCT, which had led much of the market’s rally this year.

The gains were led by Apple (AAPL.O) and Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O), which rose between 0.45 percent and 1 percent.

Netflix (NFLX.O) shares were up 1.47 percent, hitting a record high at $200.81, after a slew of price target increases ahead of its earnings report on Monday.