Charles Abuede
The Nigerian bourse sustained its positive performance on Wednesday as price upticks in the consumer goods and banking sector continue to drive trading in its bullish streak with improved investor appetite.
Trading on the floor of the exchange was positive for the third straight day this week as price appreciation in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+2.6%), STANBIC (+2.7%) and GUINNESS (+1.5%) drove the benchmark index up 18 basis points to settle at 25,460.00 points. Consequently, investors gained N23.9 billion as market capitalisation advanced to N13.3 trillion while the year to date loss moderated to -5.1 per cent.
Similarly, the activity level in the market waned as volume and value traded declined by 83.1 per cent and 46.7 per cent to 181.3 million units and N1.1 billion respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were TRANSCORP (26.8m units), REGALINS (20.3m units) and UBA (13.3m units) while ZENITH (N220.7m), MTNN (N157.5m) and GUARANTY (N145.0m) led by value.
Mixed sector performance
There was a mixed performance across sectors on the trading day as out of 6 indices, 2 recorded gains, 2 lost while 2 closed flat. The Consumer Goods and Banking indices closed positive, up 55 basis points and 34 basis points respectively owing to price upticks in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+2.6%), FLOURMILL (+1.1%), STANBIC (+2.7%) and UBN (+2.0%).
On the flip side, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices closed in the red, down 93 basis points and 19 basis points in that order due to selling pressures in MANSARD (-9.2%) and OANDO (-2.1%). Lastly, the AFR-ICT and Industrial Goods indices closed flat.
Investor sentiment wanes
Meanwhile, there was a weakening of the Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio), falling to 1.8x from the 3.0x recorded previously as 18 stocks gained against the 10 that declined. The top gainers were CORNERSTONE (+8.3%), UNIONDAC (+8.0%) and REGALINS (+4.3%) while ACADEMY (-10.0%), MANSARD (-9.2%) and UAC-PROP (-2.4%) lost the most.
