Nigerian stocks consolidate gains as benchmark index rises 0.63% on buy interest in bellwethers

Nigerian stocks posted a bullish performance Monday as the All Share Index (ASI) rose 0.6 percent to 40,788.68 points while YTD return increased to 6.7 percent. As a result, investors gained N92.2 billion as market capitalization increased to N14.7 trillion.

Price appreciations in bellwethers – SEPLAT (+4.0%), ZENITH (+1.7%) and UBA (+3.3%) – accounted for today’s bullish performance. Similarly, activity level strengthened as volume and value of shares traded surged 732.4 percent and 248.9 percent to 1.6 billion units and N10.9 billion respectively.

The top traded stocks by volume were FCMB (952.6m), UBA (382.5m) and ZENITH (65.2m) while the top traded stocks by value were led by UBA (N4.2bn), FCMB (N2.4bn) and ZENITH (N1.8bn).

Sector performance was largely bullish across four of five indices with only the insurance index recording a bearish performance, down 0.7 percent due to losses in EQUITYASSURE (-2.1%).

On the other hand, the oil & gas index appreciated the most, up 2.0 percent as investors took position in SEPLAT (+4.0%) and OANDO (+9.3%). Similarly the banking and consumer goods indices advanced 1.3 percent and 0.6 percent respectively on account of gains in ZENITH (+1.7%), UBA (+3.2%), NESTLE (+0.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.7%). Likewise, the industrial goods index rose 0.1 percent due to price appreciation in WAPCO (+3.6%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.8x from 1.3x recorded previously as 34 stocks advanced against 18 stocks that declined. The top performing stocks were UNITY (+9.5%), OANDO (+9.3%) and SKYE (+9.1%) while FIDSON (-5.0%), CILEASING (-5.0%) and AGLEVENT (-4.8%) led laggards.