Bulls return as equities index rebounds by 0.17%

Bulls return as equities index rebounds by 0.17%

The Nigerian equities market snapped yesterday’s loss, as the All-Share Index that measures share price movement in the market notched a 0.17 per cent gain to close at 40,465.15 basis points.

This amounted to M36 billion profit for investors, driven by the positive interests in ZENITHBANK (+2.0 per cent), UBA (+2.4 per cent) and INTBREW (+2.5 per cent) stocks. Consequently, Month-to-Date (MtD) and Year-to-Date (YtD) returns both increased to +0.5 per cent.

Nonetheless the positive closing of the midweek session, activity level was on the low side with volume and value of trade declining by 46.41 per cent and 57.33 per cent respectively at 249.55 million units, valued at N2.18 billion, and exchanged in 6,090 deals.

Analysing by sectors, the Insurance (+3.0 per cent), Banking (+0.8 per cent), Consumer Goods (+0.3 per cent) and Oil & Gas (+0.1 per cent) indices recorded gains, while the Industrial Goods index closed flat.

Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was positive, as 22 tickers gained, relative to 16 losers, trading statistics by the Nigerian Stock Exchange showed.

NSE Trading floor

The bull camp was led by BOGAS, gaining N1 to close at N11.50 per share. Fourmill followed with N0.90 to close the session at N27 per share.

Other gainers include Zenith Bank, Vitafoam and United bank for Africa (UBA), adding N0.50, N0.25 and N0.20 to their share prices to close at N25.1, N9 and N8.60 per share respectively.

On the contrary, ETERNA topped decliners’ chart with N0.47 loss to close at N5.28 while PZ Cusson trailed with N0.15 loss to close at N5.15 per share. NEIMETH, AFRIPRUD and Honey Flour followed suit by shedding N0.11, N0.10 and N0.08 to close the day at N2.05, N6.65 and N1.20 per share respectively.

While Access Bank was the most traded stock by volume at 21.90 million units, GUARANTY emerged the most traded stock by value at N342.03 million.