The Nigerian equities market reversed Friday’s negative close to open the week 0.51 percent higher consequent on gains in DANGCEM (+1.2%), GUARANTY (+2.2%) and ZENITH (+2.4%). The day’s positive drive was equally driven by buy interest across small and mid-cap stocks.
The bourse’s All Share Index therefore settled at 43,119.00 points while year-to-date (YTD) return expanded to 12.7 percent.
Market capitalization gained N78.8 billion to close at N15.4 trillion. However, activity level declined as average volume and value traded fell 47.6 percent and 55.7 percent to 730.6 million units and N6.3 billion respectively.
Performance across sectors was largely negative as four of five indices closed in the red. The industrial goods index led laggards, shedding 1.6 percent largely on the back of losses in WAPCO (-5.0%).
The insurance index followed closely, falling 1.0 percent as investors booked profit in LINKASSURE (-4.4%) and WAPIC (-3.5%). Similarly, sell offs in FORTE (-4.7%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-1.3%) and FLOURMILLS (-4.3%) dragged the oil & gas and consumer goods indices 0.8 percent and 0.1 percent lower respectively. On the flip side, the banking index was the lone gainer, rising 1.1 percent due to a sustained rally in GUARANTY (+2.2%) and ZENITH (+2.4%).
Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) remained positive at 1.0x from 1.0x recorded the previous Friday consequent on 26 stocks advancing against 26 decliners.
The top performing stocks were FCMB (+9.8%), SKYE (+8.3%) and CAVERTON (+5.0%) while ETERNA (-6.8%), UBN (-5.0%) and WAPCO (-5.0%) were the worst performing stocks for the day. Although the equities market performed positively today, we expect a largely mixed performance this week as we anticipate profit taking in sessions ahead.
In the NASD OTC Securities Exchange, total volume and value traded stood at 26,508 units and N4.1m respectively. The SDFCWAMCO was the instrument traded on the day.
