NSE up 0.22% to halt eight-day losing streak

The bulls resurfaced in the equities market of The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday to halt an eight consecutive day of losing spree, with the All Share Index rising by 0.22per cent.

The equities market benchmark, All Share Index added 0.22 per cent or 55.66 basis points to settle at 25,517.00 basis points in contrast to 25,262.28 basis points it closed yesterday.

Today’s performance was driven by renewed interest across major counters. Following today’s gain, the month-to-date stood at -6.26 per cent decline and year-to-date loss 11.27 per cent returns trimmed losses, albeit marginally.

All sector indices – save for the Oil & Gas index decline of 1.22 per cent– closed higher, with the Banking index added 0.75 per cent topping the chart; followed by the Consumer Goods appreciated 0.60per cent.

Market Breadth turned positive, as investors’ sentiment improved following price appreciation in 19 stocks against losses recorded in 11 stocks. Sterling Bank led the top three gainers with a 5.71 per cent appreciation to close at 74 kobo per share.

Oando followed with a five per cent growth to close at N4.20 per share, while Flourmills recorded a gain of 4.99 per cent to close at N18.74 per share.

On the other hand, Forte Oil led the day’s decliners for the second consecutive day, recording a depreciation of 6.19 per cent to close at N70 per share; this was followed by Julius Berger that shed 5 percent to close at N36.10 per share and Africa Prudential that lost 4.32 per cent to close at N2.66 per share.

Diamond Bank emerged the most traded stock for the day with 34.4 million shares valued at N32.7 million, Access bank followed with 32.7 million units of shares worth N181.9 million while FBN Holdings came third with the sale of 21.9 million shares worth N66.1 million.

Transcorp sold 12.7 million shares at N8.7 million while Skye Bank emerged the fifth most active stock with 12.2 million shares valued at N6.3 million.

The money market overnight rate rose by 33basis points, from its previous close of 13.75per cent, to 14.08per cent.

Investors remained positive in the T-bills space, with average yield contracting by 13basis points to close at 18.87per cent.