NGX Records ₦96.89bn Trading Surge as Friday Accounts for 41% of Weekly Turnover

Trading activity on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) surged sharply on Friday, with investors exchanging equities worth ₦96.89 billion in a single session — almost 41 percent of the total value traded throughout the week.

Investors traded 525.99 million shares in 44,240 deals on September 18, making Friday the strongest session of the week by transaction value. Across the five trading sessions, the market recorded 3.249 billion shares worth ₦237.986 billion in 287,919 deals.

Friday’s result stands out because the session accounted for about 40.7 percent of weekly turnover, despite representing only 16.2 percent of the week’s total share volume. The figures suggest that Friday’s activity involved a much higher-value mix of securities than the trades recorded earlier in the week.

The difference becomes clearer when compared with the previous sessions. Trading value stood at ₦20.51 billion on Monday, ₦37.14 billion on Tuesday, ₦37.43 billion on Wednesday and ₦46.01 billion on Thursday. Friday’s ₦96.89 billion was therefore more than double Thursday’s figure, even though Thursday saw investors trade more than twice as many shares.

Based on the aggregate figures, Friday’s transactions averaged about ₦184 per share, compared with roughly ₦41 per share on Thursday. That figure should not be interpreted as the average market price of NGX-listed stocks; rather, it reflects the higher monetary value of the securities involved in Friday’s trading mix.

The strong Friday session helped push weekly turnover up by 82.9 percent, from ₦130.151 billion in the previous week to ₦237.986 billion. Weekly share volume, however, fell by about 10.9 percent from 3.647 billion shares, while the number of deals climbed 17.6 percent to 287,919.

The Financial Services sector remained the biggest contributor to trading volume, recording 2.581 billion shares worth ₦97.212 billion across 138,900 deals. The sector accounted for 79.43 percent of total weekly volume and 40.85 percent of transaction value.

Fidelity Bank Plc, Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc and Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc were among the most actively traded stocks, collectively accounting for 1.229 billion shares worth ₦15.94 billion. Their combined volume represented 37.83 percent of the week’s total share volume but only 6.70 percent of transaction value, highlighting the difference between high trading volume and high-value transactions.

The surge in market activity came alongside a broader improvement in Nigerian equities. The NGX All-Share Index rose 2.78 percent to 249,804.56 points, while 52 equities recorded gains during the week, compared with just nine in the previous week. Declining stocks also fell from 80 to 32.

Friday’s ₦96.89 billion session therefore emerged as the defining feature of the week’s NGX activity, with one trading day generating more than two-fifths of the total capital exchanged in Nigeria’s equities market.