Equities rebound with N133bn mid-week gain

Omobayo Azeez

The equities segment of the Nigerian stock market rebounded from previous sessions’ negative experience to gain N133 billion at the close of mid-week trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday.

The gains of the day doused the losses recorded in the preceding two sessions when the market shed N100 billion and N81 billion on Monday and Tuesday respectively.

Following the development, the All-Share Index (ASI) inched up by 1.0 percent as it added 274.57 points to close at 27,681.61 bps, thereby softening Year-to-Date (YtD) returns of the market to -11.93 percent.

Similarly, the market capitalisation of the 167 equities on the nation’s bourse soared by the same percentage to close at N13.475 trillion as against N13.342 trillion with which it opened the day.
Market turnover also followed suit to close positive as volume moved up by +91.64 percent as against -26.99 percent down-tick recorded in the previous session.

With 24 gainers emerging against 13 losers topped by Champion Breweries plc and 17 others that closed with unchanged prices, market breadth also closed in the green territory. This is an improved performance when compared with previous outlook.

Stanbic topped gainers’ chart with N2.45 to close at N39.95 per share and GUARANTY followed with N1.30 to close at N29.80. In the same vein, MTN Nigeria, ETI and WAPCO Plc gained N1, N0.80 and N0.60 to close at N140, N8.80 and N15.30 respectively.

Forte Oil led the laggards, as it depreciated by N0.35 to close at N16 while CHAMPION followed suit with N0.11 loss to close at N1.14 and CUSTODIAN, FBNH and UBA shed N0.05 each to close at N5.95, N5.40 and N6.45 per share respectively.

GTbank, Access and FBN Holdings drove turnover in the session by transacting 98.419 million shares valued at N2.826 billion, 40.728 million share units at N314.468 million and 40.079 million shares valued at N216.625 million respectively.

Investors closed the day gleefully with 379.506 million shares valued at N5.346 billion transacted in 3,923 deals as against 198.034 million shares worth N2.899 billion that exchanged hands in 3,830 trades in the previous session.