Stocks halt 5-day bearish trend as ASI gains 0.2%

Stocks on Wednesday halted a 5-day bearish run as bargain hunting in Nestle (+4.7%), Sterling Bank (+9.8%) and Guaranty Trust Bank (+0.6%) led to a rebound of 0.2 percent in the All Share Index (ASI) which settled at 31,360.28 points.

Market capitalisation rose N17.5 billion to settle at N11.7 trillion while year-to-date loss moderated to – 0.2 percent.

Investor sentiment improved as 12 stocks advanced against 18 decliners compared to 8 stocks that advanced against 29 decliners on Tuesday.

CAP (+10.0%), Sterling Bank (+9.8%) and Eterna (+9.1%) were best performing stocks while Regal Insurance (-7.7%), Africa Prudential (-7.5%) and Prestige Assurance (-7.4%) led laggards.

Activity level was however mixed as volume traded advanced 71.8 percent to 377.1m units while value traded fell 22.8 percent to N2.3 billion.

Diamond bank (113.6m units), Chams (72.1m units) and FBN Holdings (71.5m units) were the top traded stocks by volume while FBN Holdings (N586.2m), Zenith (N321.4m) and Diamond Bank (N283.4m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Performance across sectors was mixed as 2 of major 5 indices closed in the red while 1 closed flat.

The Consumer Goods and Banking indices were up 1.6 percent and 0.04 percent respectively on account of bargain hunting in Nestle (+4.2%), Sterling Bank (+9.8%), and Guaranty Trust Bank (+0.6%).

On the flip side, the Industrial Goods index shed 0.4% due to selling pressures on Dangote Cement (-1.0%) and Wapco (-0.8%) while losses in Prestige Assurance (-7.4%) and NEM (-0.8%) led to a  basis points decline in the Insurance index. The Oil & Gas index was however flat despite gains in Eterna Oil (+9.1%).

Wednesday’s rebound in the domestic equities market is expected to be sustained amidst bargain hunting that will boost market performance over the near term, opined analysts at Afrinvest.