Nigerian equities market sustains bullish trend as Index up 0.9%

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) extended gains to the second session as the NSE All Share Index (ASI) rose 0.9 per cent to close at 40,846.24 points.

As a result, market capitalisation stood at N14.8 trillion as investors gained N125.4 billion in value while Year-To-Date return strengthened to 6.8 per cent.

Price appreciation in DANGCEM (+2.0%) as well as bargain hunting in INTBREW (+4.9%) and FBNH (+1.7%) drove the bullish performance recorded on Wednesday.

Despite improved market performance, activity level remained mixed as volume traded grew 5.4 per cent to 367.2 million units while value traded fell 26.6 per cent to N5.3 billion.

The top traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (100.6m), SKYE (43.0m) and ACCESS (24.0m) while ZENITH (N2.7bn), GUARANTY (N908.7m) and ACCESS (N283.2m) were top traded stocks by value.

The performance across Sectors was largely bullish. The Industrial Goods index topped the gainers chart, up 2.0 per cent on account of buying interest in DANGCEM (+2.0%) and WAPCO (+3.0%) while the Oil & Gas index trailed, 0.8% higher largely due to price appreciation in 11PLC (+8.0%).

The Consumer Goods index closed up 0.7 per cent as bargain hunting in INTBREW (+4.9%) and GUINNESS (+0.5%) drove the positive performance of the index.

On the other hand, the Insurance index (-0.7%) led decliners as losses in CONTINSURE (-3.2%) and NEM (-2.7%) dragged the index lower while the Banking index lost 0.3% due to sell-offs in UBN (-3.0%) and UBA (-0.9%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth strengthened as 27 stocks advancing against 19 stocks that declined.

LEARNAFRICA (+8.2%), UNITY (+5.0%) and 11PLC (+5.0%) were the top performing stocks, while CILEASING (-6.8%), REDSTAREX (-4.9%) and BETAGLAS (-4.9%) led laggards today.

Analysts at Afrinvest Research explained that  following the consecutive bullish performance recorded,” we anticipate this trend to continue in subsequent trading sessions as attractive entry opportunities remain in the market”.