Nigerian equities Thursday extended gains for the third consecutive trading session with all share-index appreciating 0.62 percent, to close at 37,135.23 points, while year-to-date (YTD) gain improved to 38.18 percent.
The gains recorded helped market capitalization rise to N12.799 trillion as against preceding day close of N12.720 trillion. The volume of stocks traded stood at 412.122 million while the total value of stocks traded in 4,270 deals was N4.721 billion.
Likewise, activity level improved as volume and value traded advanced 62.1 percent and 23.2 percent to 407.0 million units and N4.7 billion respectively.
Though performance across sectors was largely bullish as four of five indices trended northwards, the banking index topped the gainers’ chart, rising 1.6 percent due to appreciation in GUARANTY (+2.5%) and ZENITH (+1.6%).
Thursday’s market performance was also influenced by gains in DANGSUGAR (+9.8%). The consumer goods index trailed the banking index, nudging 1.0 percent higher on account of gains recorded in DANGSUGAR (+9.8) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.7%).
Similarly, the industrial goods and insurance indices advanced 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent due to increase in WAPCO (+0.4%) and LINKASSURE (+4.4%) respectively.
On the other hand, losses recorded in MOBIL (-3.6%) dragged the oil & gas index 0.2 percent lower.
Investor sentiment slightly waned today as market breadth (advancers/decliners’ ratio) settled at 1.6x (against 1.7x recorded yesterday) after 25 stocks advanced against 16 declining stocks.
The best performing stocks were DANGSUGAR (+9.8%), CILEASING (9.1%) and AIRSERVICE (+4.9%) while the worst performers were CUTIX (-5.0%), NPFMCRFBK (-4.8%) and MAYBAKER (-4.7%).
Analysts are positive that with some outstanding half-year corporate scorecards yet to be released – especially from Tier-1 banks – investor sentiment would remain largely positive for the rest of the week.
