Stock market ends losing streak as Index adds 0.07% Monday

The losing streak in the local bourse was halted in the first trading session of the week as buying interest in FLOURMILL (+10.0%), FBNH (+2.4%) and WEMABANK (+8.2%) drove the All-Share Index 0.07 per cent northward to 29,292.66 points.

Consequently, YTD loss moderated to -6.8 per cent while market capitalisation increased by N7.46 billion to N12.9 trillion.

Activity level was mixed as volume traded declined 27.5 per cent to 216.3m units while value traded advanced 24.1 per cent to N2.3 billion.WAPIC (84.9m units), FBNH (16.2m units) and ZENITH (14.7m units) were the most traded stocks by volume while MTNN (N1.1bn),ZENITH (N282.3m) and GUARANTY (N275.9m) led by value.

Across sectors, performance was bullish as 4 of 6 indices closed in the green. Price appreciation in NEM (+5.6%) and WAPIC (+7.5%) drove a 1.0 per cent gain in the Insurance index.

Similarly, the Consumer Goods and Industrial Goods indices advanced, up 0.2 per cent and 2bps respectively due to gains in FLOURMILL (+10.0%), NASCON (+3.3%),CADBURY (+4.1%) and CUTIX (+7.1%).

In the same vein, the AFRI-ICT index appreciated 0.6 per cent following gains in MTNN (+0.5%) and CHAMS (+0.1%). On the flip side, the Banking index lost 0.1 per cent due to sell pressures in ZENITH(-0.8%), GUARANTY (-0.5%) and FCMB (-1.9%) while the Oil & Gas index declined 1.4% on the back of losses in FORTE (-10.0%) and TOTAL(-5.4%).

The top performing stocks were FLOURMILL (+10.0%), UNITY (+9.7%) and REDSTAREX (+9.1%) while FORTE (-10.0%), GLAXOSMITH (-9.8%) and TOTAL (-5.4%) led the laggards.