Bargain hunters raise Nigeria bourse index 1.7% in positive market opening

Nigerian capital market sprang a surprise as the all-share index (ASI) gained 1.7 percent on Wednesday, 28 June 17, the first day of trading after a long public holiday. The market, which had recorded three consecutive days of depreciation was inundated with predictions of bearish trading as many analysts predicted that Wednesday would see a market decline.

According to analysts with Afrinvest, the prices of some value stocks had prompted buying interest by investors and “we expect the optimism to be sustained in the near term as investors continue to spot opportunities in a fundamentally driven market” they said.

“We expect the optimism to be sustained in the near term as investors continue to spot opportunities in a fundamentally driven market,” they said.

Specifically, the market experienced most investors hunting for bargains in companies such as DANGCEM (2.3%), GUARANTY (4.4%), UBA (8.2%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (1.7%) and NESTLE (1.1%).

Consequently, the all-share index added 1.7% to settle at 32,657.30 points while YTD return advanced to 21.5%. Accordingly, investors recovered N185.1billion in value as market capitalization improved to N11.3trillion.

However, activity in the market was mixed as volume traded dipped 7.5% to 386.2 million units and value traded increased 1.7% to N3.3billion.

Meanwhile, performance across sectors was bullish as all indices under coverage closed in the green save except for the Insurance index, which dipped 0.1% owing to price depreciation in CONTINSURE (1.6%).

The banking index (3.2%) appreciated on account of gains in GUARANTY (8.9%) and UBA (+4.3%). The Industrial Goods index followed, up 1.1% on the back of bargain hunting in DANGCEM (2.3%).

Likewise, the consumer goods and oil & gas indices also added 0.8% and 0.4% as a result of positive sentiment towards NIGERIAN BREWERIES (1.7%) and FORTE (5.0%) respectively.

Similarly, investor sentiment improved as 26 stocks advanced against 20, which declined; thus, market breadth advanced to 1.3% from 0.7%it recorded the previous Friday.

The best performing stocks were UBA (8.2%), NEM (7.2%) and DIAMOND (6.2%) while OKOMUOIL (5.0%), JBERGER (5.0%) and UNILEVER (5.0%) were the worst performers.