Did “Window dressing” help stocks hit highest one day gain in 60 days?

The Nigerian President, Buhari has been in power for the past 31 days  and we are yet to get any official word from him with regards to the economy. Considering how critical the economy is to the success of his Government it is quite surprising that he still remains numb. Nigerian stocks have been in a bearish mode for weeks as investors continue to wait on the sidelines before they invest.

However, stock jumped into a bullish rally on Monday with the index closing at 1.2%, the largest one day gain since April 30th 2015 when it All Share Index gained 1.9%. Some Technical Analysts attribute this gain to a rally that sometimes occurs towards the end of the first half of the year and typically called “Window dressing”. It basically strategy used by fund managers to improve the value of their portfolio as they approach year end or the end of a quarter. This makes their returns look positive for the period only for it to crash afterwards.

Whilst the index closed positively around June 30th last year it was negative in 2013 suggesting this is not a regular phenomenon.

See top 5 gainers and losers.