- Driven by buy interests in DangCem, MTN, GTB
Charles Abuede
Market activities were weakened Wednesday on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as the bourse prepared to break for the country’s independence day, but investors’ bullish attitude in their buying interest in Dangote Cement (+2.8%), MTN Nigeria (+1.2%) and Guaranty Trust Bank (+3.7%) drove the 83 basis points increase posted by the benchmark index, which rose to 26,831.76 points.
As a result, market capitalisation improved to N14 trillion from N13.9 trillion recorded the previous day as investors gained N116.7 billion while the year till date (YTD) loss improved to 2 basis points.
On the other hand, the activity level in the market midweek weakened as volume and value traded fell 21.9 per cent and 10.8 per cent to 322.8 million units and N4 billion respectively. The most traded stocks by volume were Sterling Bank (83.7 million units), Access Bank (46.1 million units) and Zenith Bank (24.9 million units), while Dangote Cement (N1.2 billion), MTN (N532.5 million) and Zenith Bank (N443.4 million) led by value.
Bullish sector performance
Furthermore, the market performance across sectors was bullish as all indices closed north save the consumer goods index, which closed 1.7 per cent south due to sell-offs in Nigerian Breweries (-6.8%) and Dangote Sugar (-0.8%). Conversely, the banking indicator led the gainers, up 1.9 per cent on the back of gains in Guaranty Trust Bank (+3.7%), Zenith Bank (+2.0%) and UBA (+2.5%).
In the same vein, the industrial goods and oil & gas indices were up 1.4 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively, stoked by price appreciation in Dangote Cement (+2.8%), Total Plc (+10.0%) and Eterna Oil (+9.6%). Lastly, the AFR-ICT and insurance indices advanced 0.6 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively on the back of buying interest in MTN Nigeria (+1.2%) and WAPIC (+5.7%).
Investor sentiment strengthens
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved to 2.5x from the 1.5x recorded previously as 20 stocks gained against the eight that declined.
Total (+10.0%), Eternal (+9.6%) and UACN (+9.4%) were top gainers while UPL (-6.8%), Nigerian Breweries (-6.8%) and WAPCO (-5.9%) led the underperformers.
The NSE 30
The NSE 30 Index increased by 0.95 per cent to close at 1,148.54 points as against 1,137.77 points the previous day. Market turnover closed with a traded volume of 258.35 million units. Total and Sterling were the key gainers, while Nigerian Breweries and UBN were the key losers.
