The bulls are having a field day on the Nigerian equities market and Wednesday marked it five sessions in a row that the exchange sustained a bullish run with the All Share Index (ASI) rising above the 30,000 benchmark to close the day at 30,460.68 points.
The performance was specifically driven by price appreciation in Dangote Cement (+4.4%), Guinness (+9.7%) and UBA (+2.1%), which pushed the ASI 1.1 percent higher.
Consequently, year-to-date loss moderated to -3.1 percent while market capitalisation increased by N120.5 billion to N11.4 trillion.
Activity level ended on a mixed note as volume traded increased 1.9 percent to 305.8 million units while value traded declined 35.3 percent to N2.1 billion.
The day’s top traded stocks by volume were Diamond (141.2m units), Fidelity (18.6m units) and Guaranty (17.4m units). Topping the activity chart by value were Guaranty (N577.7m), Zenith (N357.1m) and Diamond (N296.6m).
Sector performance was mixed with 3 of 5 indices closing northwards. Among gainers, the insurance index maintained the lead, up 2.3 percent due to bargain hunting in Custodian and Allied Insurance (+9.4%), NEM (+9.6%) and Wapic (+5.0%).
The industrial goods and consumer goods indices trailed, rising 1.7 percent and 0.2 percent respectively on the back of buying interest in Dangote Cement (+4.4%), Guinness (+9.7%) and Honeywell Flourmill (+9.6%).
On the flip side, the banking and oil & gas indices declined, down 0.7 percent and 0.01 percent respectively dragged by losses in Guaranty (-2.7%), FBN Holdings (-2.0%) and Oando (-3.3%).
Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.5x from 1.4x recorded the previous day as 24 stocks advanced against 16 that declined. The top gainers were Sovereign Insurance (+10.0%), Veritas Kapital Insurance (+10.0%) and Guinness (+9.7%) while Betaglass (-10.0%), NNFM (-9.2%) and Resort Savings and Loans (-8.8%) were the top losers.
Advising investors in a note Wednesday evening, Afrinvest a local based research firm said “we are cautiously optimistic of the positive sentiment we observed in the last 5 trading sessions, hence we recommend strategic investment in fundamentally sound stocks in the short to medium term.”
