Nigeria equities start week positive as benchmark index advances 0.5%
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
The Nigerian equities market, having recorded an uptick from a 5-week losing streak last week to record its highest weekly gain in the last 10 weeks, began the second week of June on a positive note with the benchmark index, the NSEASI advancing 0.45 percent to close at 38,844.32 points on Monday.
Consequently, year-to-date (YTD) return improved to 1.6 percent.
Market performance was largely driven by gains in GUARANTY (+1.1%), FBNH (+2.8%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%) with market capitalization gaining N63.8 billion to close N14.1 trillion.
Activity level was mixed though as volume traded improved by 187.2 percent to 603.2 million units while value traded remained flat at N3.9 billion.
The most traded stocks by volume were IKEJAHOTEL (279.6m), UCAP (79.1m) and AFRIPRUD (56.8m) while IKEJAHOTEL (N705.0m), DANGSUGAR (N641.9m) and GUARANTY (N437.7m) were the top traded stocks by value.
Performance across sectors was also mixed as three of five major indices trended northwards. The banking index was the best performer, up 1.1 percent, due to buy interest in GUARANTY (+1.1%), ZENITH (+0.9%) and UBN (+4.5%).
Similarly, the insurance and consumer goods indices advanced 0.4 percent apiece as a result of gains in EQUITYASUR (+5.0%), AIICO (+4.8%), NIGERINS (+4.0%), NASCON (+7.1%), FLOURMILL (+1.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%).
On the flipside, the industrial goods and oil & gas indices closed in the red, shedding 0.9 percent and 0.1 percent respectively due to losses in BERGER (-5.0%), WAPCO (-1.9%) and ETERNA
(-4.7%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.5x from 0.6x in the prior session as 30 stocks advanced against 20 stocks that declined.
The day’s top performing stocks were NASCON (+7.1%), DIAMOND (+6.6%) and JAPAULOIL (+6.5%) while BERGER (-5.0%), BOCGAS (-5.0%) and ETERNA (-4.7%) were the worst performers.
Analyst say they expect the positive performance to be sustained in the subsequent trading sessions as investors continue to hunt for bargain opportunities.