Banking stocks buoy Nigeria’s equities market as NSEASI rebounds 0.2%
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
The Nigerian equities market rebounded from a 1.1 percent loss Wednesday as renewed buy interest in banking stocks drove benchmark index, the NSEASI 0.2 percent higher to close 36,688.91 points.
Accordingly, the year-to-date loss moderated to 4.1 percent as gains in ZENITH (+2.6%), UBA (+5.9%), ETI (+2.3%), ACCESS (+3.1%) and GUARANTY (+0.4%) drove market performance.
Equities market capitalisation closed N128.5 billion higher to settle at N13.4 trillion, however, activity level weakened as volume and value traded declined 5.9 percent and 41.8 percent to 225.8 million units and N2.9 billion respectively.
Thursday’s top traded stocks by volume were NAHCO (36.2m), UBA (28.7m) and FBNH (26.0m) while GUARANTY (N556.0m), NESTLE (N411.0m) and UBA (N270.9m) were the most traded stocks by value.
Sectoral performance closed mixed as 2 of 5 indices closed in the green. The banking index rallied, up 2.4 percent, following buy interest in ZENITH (+2.6%), UBA (+5.9%), ETI (+2.3%), ACCESS (+3.1%) and GUARANTY (+0.4%).
Similarly, the insurance index rose 0.6 percent on the back of gains in CONTINSURE (+8.3%), WAPIC (+7.7%), LASACO (+9.1%) and MBENEFIT (+5.1%).
On the flip side, the consumer goods index closed in the red as a result of continued sell-offs in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.9%) and GUINNESS (-2.1%).
The industrial goods and oil & gas indices trailed, down 0.5 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, largely due to losses in DANGCEM (-0.4%), WAPCO (-0.7%), OANDO (-4.3%) and ETERNA (-1.6%).
The top gainers were PORTPAINT (+9.8%), UAC-PROP (+9.7%) and LASACO (+9.1%) while NSLTECH (-10.0%), FLOURMILL (-5.4%) and OANDO (-4.3%) were the worst performers.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.4x from 0.9x recorded in the preceding session as 23 stocks advanced relative to 16 that declined.
Analysts expect the market to close positive for the week, saying Friday’s trade would be in line with Thursday’s rebound.