Nigerian bourse posts very marginal 0.01% rebound on moderate gains by key banking, oil stocks

As a result, year-to-date loss improved to 2.2 percent while market capitalization increased by N1.6 billion to N11.5 trillion. However, activity level fell as volume and value traded declined by 51.0 percent and 56. percent to 245 million units and N2.4 billion.

 In terms of volume, the most active stocks for the day were Diamond (71.6m units), Access (27.0m units) and Guaranty (27.0m units) while the top traded stocks by value were Guaranty (N848.0m), Zenith (N236.0m) and Seplat (N193.8m).

On a sectoral basis, performance remained mixed with a bearish bias as only 2 of 5 indices under  closed in the green. The oil & gas index advanced the most, up 1.7 percent, following price appreciation in Seplat (+1.9%) and Oando (+6.8%).

In the same vein, the banking index rose 0.8 percent due to gains in Guaranty (+1.3%), Zenith (+1.4%) and Fidelity (+3.5%).

 On the flip side, the industrial goods index shed the most, down 2.5 percent following losses in Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (-7.1%).

Similarly, the consumer goods and insurance indices declined by 0.3 percent and 0.4 percent respectively, weighed by price depreciation in Nigerian Breweries (-1.2%), NEM Insurance (-3.9%), Wapic Insurance (-4.8%) and Sovereign Insurance (-8.3%).

Market breadth (advance/decline ratio), a measure of investor sentiment settled at 2.6x as 26 stocks advanced against 9 stocks that declined; this was higher than 0.7x in Monday’s trading session.

The top performing stocks for the day were Linkage Assurance (+9.8%), Red Star Express (+9.1%) and Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (+8.4%) while Sovereign Insurance (-8.3%), Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (-7.1%) and Wapic Insurance (-4.8%) were the biggest losers.

Despite the slightly positive performance, capital market analysts expect to see profit taking in subsequent sessions.