Nigeria’s equities market rebounded Thursday following price appreciation in Unilever (+6.8%), Dangote Cement(+0.5%) and UBA (+1.3%).
As a result, the All Share Index (ASI) rose 0.12%Â to 32,453.7 points, year-to-date gain improved to 3.4 percent and market capitalisation increased by N14.0 billion to N12.1 trillion.
On the flip side, activity level weakened as volume and value traded declined 10.1 percent and 12.1 percent to 422.7m units and N3.7bn respectively.
The most active stocks by volume were Diamond (97.6m units), Transcorp (41.1m units) and Zenith (40.3m units) while by value, Zenith (N997.1m), Guaranty (N992.6m) and Access (N263.7m) led.
Across sectors, performance was mixed, albeit with a bullish bias as 3 of 5 indices advanced.
The Insurance index rose 1.2 percent as NEM (+5.0%) and Custodian (+1.7%) recorded gains.
Also, the Industrial and Consumer Goods indices inched 0.7 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, due to buying interest in Dangote Cement (+0.5%), WAPCO (+3.1%), Unilever (+6.8%) and PZ Cussons (+5.2%).
On the other hand, the Oil & Gas and Banking indices declined, down 0.8 percent and 0.5 percent respectively on the back of profit taking in Oando (-5.2%), Eterna Plc (-3.1%). Zenith (-0.6%),and Access (-0.8%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.7x, an improvement from the 0.7x recorded Wednesday as 22 stocks advanced against the 13 stocks that declined.
The best performers were Livestock Feeds (+10.0%), ABC Transport (+10.0%) and Unity Bank (+9.6%) while Union Bank (-8.0%), Oando (-5.2%) and Dangote Flour (-4.6%) were the worst performing stocks.
 Despite the day’s positive performance, analysts at Afrinvest maintain a conservative outlook for Friday’s trading session.
They said ,” We expect profit taking activities in fundamentally good stocks as the market closes for the week.”
