A raft of buy interest in quoted equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange Wednesday saw a rebound of the market, trading positively after a five-day stretch of losses in the performance index as trading closed, the activity result obtained by Businessamlive shows.
Active trading in the shares of Guinness, Seplat, Zenith, Nigerian Breweries, Dangcem and Stanbic pushed the bourse’s all-share index up 0.6 percent to close at 35,609.07 points as against -0.28% depreciation recorded previously, while year-to-date returns advanced to 32.5 percent.
Accordingly, share prices gained N70.7 billion as market capitalization settled at N12.3 trillion.
Major drivers of Wednesday’s positive trade were DANGCEM (+1.0%), ZENITH (+2.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.4%) and GUINNESS (+10.2%).
Market activity level improved as volume and value traded rose 22.5 percent and 13.6 percent to 281.8 million units and N5.4 billion respectively. GUARANTY, ACCESS and FBNH were the most active to boost market turnover just as GUARANTY and NESTLE topped market value list.
PZ led the list of active stocks that recorded impressive volume spike at the end of the trading session.
Sector performance was mixed as three of five indices closed positive.
Specifically, the oil and gas index led sector gainers, up 1.3 percent as a result of bargain hunting in SEPLAT (+3.4%).
In the same vein, buy interest in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.4%), GUINNESS (+10.2%), ZENITH (+2.9%) and STANBIC (+1.3%) buoyed the consumer goods and banking indices by 0.8 percent and 0.1 percent respectively.
On the flip side, despite an uptick in DANGCEM (+1.0%), the industrial goods index closed 0.5 percent lower due to losses in WAPCO (-2.5%). Likewise, the insurance index fell 0.4 percent on account of price depreciation in CUSTODYINS (-2.8%) and LINKASSURE (-4.5%).
Investor sentiment remained soft as market breadth stayed flat at 0.9 times after 22 stocks advanced against 23 decliners.
Wednesday’s top gainers were GUINNESS (+10.2%), REDSTAREX (+9.8%) and AIRSERVICE (+4.9%) while the top losers were PZ (-5.0%), MORISON (-4.9%) and LINKASSURE (-4.5%).
Analysts at Afrinvest are cautious on the outcome of future trades, saying the market may swing in both positive and negative directions on persisting profit taking.
“Whilst today’s performance comes in positive, the relatively soft market breadth suggests investors are still taking profit. Hence, we are of the view that the equities market may trade sideways in the short term,” they noted.
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