Nigeria’s equities market sustained its positive momentum Tuesday on the backdrop of bargain hunting driven by impressive half-year results recently released to the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Specifically, price appreciation in NESTLE (+6.5%), SEPLAT (+2.4%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES(+0.5%) drove the All Share Index (ASI) 0.2 percent higher to 37,017.78 points.
Consequently, the year-to-date loss improved to 3.2 percent while market capitalisation gained N30 billion to close at N13.4 trillion.
Trading activities closed mixed as volume traded fell 23.3 percent to 244.9 million units while value traded advanced 47.4 percent to N4.5 billion.
Top traded stocks by volume were GUARANTY (39.6 million), UBA (27.9 million) and STERLING (26.9 million), while GUARANTY (N1.6 billion), NESTLE (N1.4 billion) and UBA ( N0.3 billion) led the top traded stocks by value.
Across sectors, performance was equally positive as four of five indices closed in the green. The consumer goods index led gainers, up 2.2 percent on the back of buy interest in NESTLE (+6.5%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.5%).
The insurance and oil & gas indices trailed, rising 1.3 percent and 1.2 percent respectively due to price appreciation in MANSARD (+3.1%), EQUITYASSUR (+10.0%) and SEPLAT (+2.4%).
In the same vein, bargain hunting in CCNN (+3.3%) drove the industrial goods index 0.1 percent higher.
On the flip side, the banking index was the lone loser, down 1.4 percent as ZENITH (-3.0%) and GUARANTY (-1.1%) recorded losses.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.7x from 1.4x recorded in the previous trading session as 17 stocks advanced against 24 stocks that declined.
The best performing stocks were EQUITYASSUR (+10.0%),PRESTIGE (+9.6%) and MBENEFIT (+9.1%) while DIAMOND (-10.0%), OKOMU ( -10.0%) and JAIZ (-9.4%) led laggards.
Analysts at Afrinvest expect the bullish sentiment to be maintained in subsequent trading sessions as investors take position ahead of the release of more H1:2018 results.
“Nevertheless, we do not rule out the possibility of profit taking following four consecutive days of gains,” the analysts noted.
