Charles Abuede
Nigeria’s equities market continued its bullish performance Tuesday as investors took positions in fundamentally sound stocks ahead of earnings releases by traded companies. It meant the NSE 30 saw a positive improvement in trading from the previous day’s performance.
The market’s positive trend was aided by buying interest in Zenith Bank (+1.2%), Dangote Sugar (+1.6%) and ETI (+2.4%), which lifted the benchmark index by 39 basis points to 26,611.96 points. Consequently, market capitalisation improved by N54.4 billion to N13.9 trillion while the market year till date (YTD) return improved to -0.9 per cent.
Similarly, the market activity level increased as volume and value traded climbed 22.7 per cent and 12.4 per cent to 413.1 million units and N4.5 billion respectively. The most traded stocks by volume were Zenith (90.9 million units), Sterling Bank (82.3 million units) and UBA (56.7 million units), while Zenith Bank (N1.6 billion), Dangote Cement (N1.0 billion) and Guaranty Trust Bank (N448.2 million) led by value.
Outstanding sector performance
Sector performance remained sublime as all six indices under our analyts’ coverage gained. The industrial goods index recorded the most gain, up 0.8 per cent due to buying interest in BUA Cement (+3.3%). In the same vein, the banking and AFR-ICT indices advanced 0.4 per cent apiece owing to price upticks in Zenith Bank (+1.2%), Guaranty Trust Bank (+0.2%) and MTN Nigeria (+0.8%).
Furthermore, the oil & gas and insurance indices rose 0.3 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively due to price appreciation in Seplat Petroleum (+0.5%), OANDO Plc (+0.5%), and AIICO Insurance(+6.3%). Lastly, the consumer goods index climbed 0.1 per cent following price appreciation in Dangote Sugar (+1.6%) and Honeywell Flour (+2.2%).
Investor sentiment wanes
On the other end of the market, the investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 1.5x from the 3.1x recorded previously as 16 stocks gained against the 11 that lost. Wema Bank (+7.5%), AIICO Insurance (+6.3%) and African Prudential (+4.0%) were top gainers while E-Tranzact (-10.0%), Cornerstone Insurance (-8.5%) and WAPCO (-6.2%) led the underperformers.
The NSE 30
The NSE 30 Index increased by 0.44 per cent to close at 1,137.77 points as against 1,132.78 points the previous day. Market turnover closed with a traded volume of 354.47 million units. BUA Cement and Sterling Bank were the key gainers, while Lafarge Africa and FBN Holdings were the key losers.
