Nigeria equities market records first gain in December on banking index growth

Nigeria’s equities market Tuesday recorded a 0.68 percent gain, the first gain of the month, to reverse Monday’s loss.

The market had recorded a loss of 0.24 percent on Monday. The upturn was however driven by a 2.62 percent growth in the banking sector performance index on bargain hunting in banking stocks such as Guaranty Trust Bank (+3.8%), UBA (+6.7%) and Zenith Bank (+1.7%).

The All Share Index thus settled at 31,007.25 points while year-to-date loss moderated to -18.9 percent.

Investors’ wealth improved as market capitalisation rose by N76.1 billion to close at N11.3 trillion. Activity level weakened as volume and value traded declined by 20.5 percent and 22.2 percent respectively to close at 198.5 million units and N2.1 billion respectively.

The top traded stocks by volume for the day were FBN Holdings (63.9m units), Access Bank (23.2m units) and Ecobank (16.5m units) while the top traded stocks by value were FBN Holdings (N479.3m), Guaranty Trust Bank (N407.3m), and Ecobank (N263.6m).

Two of the five major sectoral indices closed negative, one closed flat and two closed higher.  Banking index gained 2.6 percent as price upticks in GTB (+3.8%) and UBA (+6.7%) pushed the index higher.

The insurance index trailed as bargain hunting in Axa Mansard (+9.9%) erased sustained profit taking in Continental Re-insurance (-2.8%) pulling the index higher by 0.7 percent.

The industrial goods index and consumer goods index closed southwards for the second consecutive session as sell pressures in WAPCO (-4.5%), Nigerian Breweries (-0.5%) and Unilever (-1.0%) pushed the indices lower by 0.9 percent and 0.1 percent respectively.

The oil & gas index closed flat as no component of the index changed in price.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.8x from 1.6x recorded in Monday’s session as 24 stocks advanced against 13 decliners.

The best performing stocks were Axa Mansard (+9.9%), Diamond Bank (+9.9%) and University Press Limited (+7.5%) while Linkage Assurance (-9.7%), Veritas Kapital (-9.1%) and May&Baker (-8.0%) led the laggards.

Significant headroom remains for increased buying activities, according to Afrinvest analysts, thus prompting them to anticipate a bullish performance in subsequent sessions while they maintain a bearish outlook over the near term.