Nigeria’s equity market resumes upward trend as oil and gas stocks rally
Reporter
The Nigerian equities recouped Tuesday loss by closing Wednesday on a positive note, with NSE ASI appreciating by 1.51% to close at 32,686.72 basis points against 1.16% depreciation recorded previously. The bourse’s year-to-date (YTD) returns expanded to 21.63%.
Wednesday market was majorly driven by a rebound in market heavyweight DANGCEM (+4.8%) and rally in Oil & Gas stocks – SEPLAT (+5.0%) and FORTE (+10.2%). As a result, market capitalisation improved N168.1bn to close at N11.3tn.
However, market breadth closed negative as INTBREW led 26 gainers against 27 losers, topped by FBNH, representing an unimproved performance when compared with previous outlook.
Activity level also softened as volume and value traded fell 33.0% and 37.5% to settle at 499.1m units and N4.1bn respectively.
Performance across sectors was broadly mixed as 3 of 5 indices advanced. The Oil & Gas index outperformed with a 3.0% gain on account of appreciations in FORTE (+10.2%) and SEPLAT (+5.0%).
SEPLAT’s bullish close could be linked to the lifting of Force Majeure on Forcados export terminal which is positive for production volumes, forward earnings and cash flow of the company.
Likewise, the Industrial Goods index rebounded 2.0% due to renewed interest in DANGCEM (+4.8%) while the Consumer Goods index added 0.6% on the back of gains in DANGSUGAR (+10.0%) and INTBREW (+10.2%).
On the flipside, the Insurance index extended losses, down 1.4% due to declines in AIICO (-3.6%) and MANSARD (-3.0%) while the Banking index slid 0.6% on account of losses in ZENITH (-0.8%) and GUARANTY (-0.8%).
Volume traded decreased by 33.00% from 744.992 million to 499.108 million, while the total value of stock traded decreased by 37.50% from ₦6.519 billion to ₦4.074 billion in 6,424 deals.
The Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 404.976 million shares exchanged for ₦2.616 billion. Consumer Goods came next with 37.628 million shares traded for ₦0.587 billion, Conglomerates, Oil And Gas, Services sectors followed in that order on the activity chart.
FBNH, UBA, Diamond Bank, Fidelity Bank and Access were the most active stocks by volume. Intbrew, FO, Dangsugar, Maybaker and Unitybnk emerged the highest price gainers on the chart, while FBNH, FCMB, UBN, UAC-PROP and Thomaswy topped the losers’ chart.