By Chuks Emele
Monday, 6 October 2020
The gains appear to be driven largely by investors’ flight from low yields in fixed income securities, such as bonds and treasury bills, as well as savings deposits. Many investors now see an opportunity for better earnings from stocks, seen by many analysts as being at their cheapest in a long while.
Big dividend payers and shares considered high-value in the banking, telecommunications, building and construction sectors are drawing investors. These include MTN Nigeria, Airtel Africa and key banking stocks such as Zenith, Stanbic IBTC, UBA, Guaranty Trust and Dangote Cement, among others.
“Performance across sectors remained bullish, as five out of the six key indexes under our coverage improved,” analysts at Lagos-based brokerage, LeadCaptal, said in a note to clients.
An investor tracking the All-Share Index with a purchase on April 6, when the market hit its year low of 20,669.38 points, would’ve gained more than 40 percent at today’s close, adding more than 12 percent in the last 12 days alone. An investment in MTN would’ve earned a return of 55.5 percent during the period; in Zenith the gain would be 72.6 percent, in Guaranty Trust 76.5 while Dangote Cement would’ve returned 35.2 percent on the investment.