By Charles Abuede
Activities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange continued their bullish run Thursday with the All Share Index (ASI) rising by 19 basis points at the end of trading to close at 24,930.34 points as a result of buying interest in SEPLAT (+9.0%), STANBIC (+4.8%) and MTNN (+0.4%).
Investors gained N25.2 billion as a result of the bullish trading with market capitalisation rising to N13 trillion while year-to-date (YTD) loss eased to -7.1 percent.
Activity level declined as volume and value traded fell 54.7 percent and 45.2 percent to 173.7 million units and N2.1 billion respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were FBN Holdings, which did 29.8 million units; Guaranty Trust Bank, which did 13.2 million units; and Custodian Insurance, which did 12.8m units.
In terms of the top traded equities by value, MTN Nigeria traded shares valued at N636.6 million to top the table. It was followed by Guaranty Trust Bank, which traded a value of N312.6 million, in second position; and Stanbic IBTC, with value of traded equities at N158.7 million came third.
Bullish sector performance
Performance across sectors was bullish as four out of six indices closed in the green. The Oil & Gas and AFR-ICT indices advanced 4.4 percent and 0.2 percent respectively due to buying interest in SEPLAT (+9.0%), ETERNA (+4.4%) and MTNN (+0.4%).
In the same vein, the Banking and Consumer Goods indices rose 0.1 percent apiece due to price appreciation in STANBIC (+4.8%), ZENITH (+1.2%), GUINNESS (+3.9%) and NASCON (+4.2%).
Conversely, the Industrial Goods index led laggards, down 0.7 percent due to a price decline in BUACEMENT (-1.7%), while losses in LINKASSURE (-5.0%) and NEM (-1.6%) dragged the Insurance index two basis points (2bps) lower.
Investor sentiment strengthens
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth, indicating advance/decline ratio, strengthened to 2.0x from the 1.5x recorded previously as 20 stocks advanced against the 10 decliners. The top gainers were SEPLAT (+9.0%), FIDSON (+8.6%) and STANBIC (+4.8%), while UBN (-7.4%), LEARNAFRCA (-6.9%) and LINKASSURE (-5.0%) lost the most.
“Following four consecutive bullish sessions and profit-taking witnessed earlier, we could see profit-taking activities drag market performance tomorrow (on Friday),” said analysts at Afrinvest, while adding that they expect the equities market to close on a positive note for the week.
Corporate filings:
CONOIL PLC. (Unaudited H1:2020 Result): Revenue fell 20.4% y/y to N57.5 billion from N72.2 billion in H1:2019, while profit after tax declined 67.2% to N338.7 million from N1.0 billion in H1:2019.
AFRICAN ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC. (Unaudited H1:2020 Result): Gross premium written fell 20.9% y/y to N3.1 billion from N3.9 billion in H1:2019 while the company reported a profit after tax of N507.6 million from a N2.4 billion loss in H1:2019.
