Nigerian bourse maintains bullish run as Index up 1.07% Wednesday

The equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday gained 1.07 per cent, sustaining bullish run to three consecutive days.

The performance was driven by gains in industrial goods stocks particularly Dangote Cement Plc (+4.4 percent), Guinness Nigeria (+9.7 percent) and UBA (+2.1 percent).

Specifically, the NSE All Share Index (ASI) went up by 323.15 absolute points, representing an increase of 1.07 percent, closing at 30, 460.68 points even as the market capitalization increased by N120.50 billion representing a growth of 1.07 percent, closing at N11.36 trillion.

Consequently, the Year to Date (YtD) loss moderated to -3.1 per cent.

Activity level was however mixed as volume traded increased 1.9 per cent to 305.8million units while value traded declined 35.3 percent to N2.1billion.

The top traded stocks by volume were Diamond Bank (141.2millon units), Fidelity Bank (18.6million units) and Guaranty Trust Bank (17.4million units) while Guaranty Trust Bank (N577.7million), Zenith Bank (N357.1million) and Diamond Bank (N296.6million) were the top traded by value.

Market breadth closed at positive, recording 24 gainers and 16 losers. The top gainers were Sovereign Insurance Plc (+10.0 percent), VERITAS KAPITAL (+10.0 percent) and Guinness Nigeria (+9.7% percent) while BETA GLASS(-10.0 percent), Northern Nigeria Flour Mills , NNFM (-9.2 percent ) and RESORTSAL (-8.8 percent ) were the top losers.

Analysts at Afrinvest Research said : “We are cautiously optimistic of the positive sentiment we observed in the last 5 trading sessions, hence we recommend strategic investment in fundamentally sound stocks in the short to medium term.”

Meanwhile, sector performance was mixed as three of five indices closed northwards. Among gainers, the Insurance index maintained the lead, up 2.3 percent due to bargain hunting in Custodian Investment (+9.4 percent), NEM Insurance (+9.6 percent) and WAPIC Insurance (+5.0 percent).

The Industrial Goods and Consumer Goods indices trailed, rising 1.7 percent and 0.2 percent respectively on the back of buying interest in Dangote Cement (+4.4 percent), Guinness (+9.7 percent) and Honeywell Flour Mills (+9.6 percent).