Nigerian stocks slip out of its bear market trading Thursday as the bourse’s benchmark index rose 0.55 percent, chiefly helped by price appreciation in Dangote Cement (DANGCEM).
At the end of Thursday’s trade, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) all-share index settled at 35,660.04 basis points as against 35,464.34 points previously with year-to-date gain improving to 32.69 percent from 31.1 percent in the last trade.
Apart from DANGCEM (+2.4%) other major drivers of market performance were NESTLE (+1.3%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.3%). However, excluding DANGCEM, the market would have shed 17bps.
Value of stocks improved by N70 billion as market capitalization advanced to N12.3 trillion. Market activity level equally rose as volume and value traded climbed 11.9 percent and 73.1 percent to N128.3 million units and N2.7 billion respectively.
Review of sectorial performance indicates that the industrial goods index led gainers, up 1.1 percent due to the uptick in DANGCEM (+2.4%). The insurance index followed, closing 0.4 percent higher on account of price appreciation in CONTINSURE (+2.1%) and NEM (+3.6%), while the consumer goods index marginally rose 0.2 percent following positive sentiment towards NESTLE (+1.3%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.3%).
On the other hand, the oil & gas index fell 1.0 percent on the back of losses in OANDO (-5.0%) while the banking index (-0.6%) was dragged by declines in ZENITH (-2.4%) and GUARANTY (-0.2%).
Investor sentiment continued its wane Thursday as market breadth closed negative with OKOMUOIL (+5.7%) leading 15 gainers as against 22 losers topped by NEIMETH (-8.4%), which is an unimproved performance when compared with previous outlook.
Other top gainers include CILEASING (+4.4%) and AIRSERVICE (+4.0%) while CONOIL (-5.0%) and UNILEVER (-5.0%) were the other top losers.
According to analysts, Thursday market performance was largely driven by bargain hunting in market bellwethers. They therefore expect the market to trade in similar trend Friday.
