By Charles Abuede
The bulls exerted their dominance over the Nigerian equity market Tuesday with the banking and industrial goods sectors driving the market to gain as stocks climbed higher in their first trading session after the Christmas break. The index was up 0.8 per cent to close at 39,110.17 points.
The performance was buoyed by strong demand for BUA Cement (+6.7%), Zenith Bank (+2.0%) and Access Bank (+4.1%) and the market year to date return increased to 45.7 per cent as market capitalisation advanced N167.6 billion to settle at N20.4 trillion from N20.3 trillion close at the last trading session. Read Also:
Similarly, market activity level was mixed as volume traded rose 85.4 per cent to 722.6 million units while value traded dipped 45 per cent to N4.4 billion. The most traded stocks by volume were AIICO Insurance (273.1 million units), Oando Plc (81.4 million units) and FBN Holdings (41.1 million units), while Dangote Cement (N993.2 million), Zenith Bank (N742 million) and Access Bank (N353.3 million) led the value table.
There was a mixed performance across the six sectors as two sectors gained, three lost while the AFR-ICT indicator closed flat. The industrial goods and banking indices climbed 2.4 per cent and 1.1 per cent, respectively on the back of gains in BUA Cement (+6.7%), Cutix Plc (+2.3%) and Zenith Bank (+2.0%).
Conversely, the insurance index fell 0.8 per cent, underpinned by losses in AXA Mansard (-4.8%) and AIICO Insurance (-1.6%). Finally, the oil & gas and consumer goods indices declined 0.1 per cent apiece following sell-offs in Oando Plc (-0.6%), Flour Mills (-1.6%) and Guinness Plc (-1.0%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) fell to 0.9x from the 2.6x recorded previously as 18 stocks gained against 20 losers. Jaiz Bank (+10.0%), NEM (+9.6%) and Lasaco (+8.8%) were the best performing tickers while NCR (-9.7%), FTN Cocoa (-9.0%) and Transport Express Company (-8.9%) led the losers.
The NSE 30
The NSE 30 index increased by 0.99 per cent to close at 1,583.79 points as against 1,568.25 points close in the last session. Market turnover closed with a traded volume of 177.81 million units. BUA Cement and Access Bank were the key gainers, while Flour Mills and Guinness were the key losers.
Foreign Exchange Market
In the FX street market, the naira depreciated by N5 to a dollar to trade at N470 per dollar from N465. At the importers’ and […]
