By Omobayo Azeez
Following another positive session that yielded N375 billion in profit to the delights of investors, earlier negative year-to-date returns on the equities market eased to -11.3 per cent while month-to-date gain stood at 3.4 per cent as at Tuesday.
The sustained uptrend in the market jacked up the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index (NSE) index by 719.45 points to close at 23,809.31 basis points from 23,089.86 points it opened the day.
Similarly, valuation of listed stocks at the local bourse advanced by N375 billion or 3.12 per cent to close higher at N12.408 trillion to sustain stance above N12 trillion mark it hit on Monday.
The last trading session equally experienced improved participation as traded stocks at the domestic bourse increased by 38.2 per cent to 345.18 million units, valued at N4.25 billion and exchanged in 4,689 deals.
According to the day’s trading data obtained from the NSE, GUARANTY was the most traded stock by volume and value at 54.29 million units and N1.14 billion respectively.
It is noted that interests in bellwether stocks has been fuelling the sustained northward movement of the market and on Tuesday, 29 gainers, led again by the bellwethers, emerged against six decliners to close market breadth positive.
In order of appearance, the gainers were led by Nestle, gaining N54.8 to close at N975 per share; followed by Dangote Cement and MTN Nigeria gaining N13 and N4 to close at N143 and N120 per share respectively.
Others include Zenith Bank which closed the day with N0.50 gain and N14.85 per share, and Access Bank Plc that appreciated by N0.40 to close at N6.50 per share.
On the flip side, Flourmill topped decliners’ chat as it shed N1.25 to close at N19.75 per share followed by BUA Cement which depreciated by N0.80 to close at N31.80 per share.
Others are MayBanker, NPF Microfinance Bank and LinkAssure trailed with N0.27, N0.12 and N0.05 losses to close at N2.43, N1.13 and N0.48 per share respectively.
Analysing by sectors, performance was positive as all sector indices gained save for the Insurance index which depreciated by -0.3 per cent.
The Banking index upped by 2.4 per cent and Consumer Goods index advanced by 2.4 per cent to lead gains, followed by the Industrial Goods  and Oil and Gas indices that jacked up by 1.6 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively.
