UMORU ABDULKADIR
The bulls tightened their grip on the Nigeria equities market on Monday, the first trading day of the week to help the market sustain its positive outlook as the twin market indicators of the All-Share index and market capitalization advanced by 0.16 per cent each.
Precisely, while the All-Share Index added 44.36 basis points or 0.16 per cent to close at 27, 035.78 points higher than 26,991.42 points achieved on Friday, the market capitalisation nicked N22 billion or 0.16 per cent to settle at N13.049 trillion as against N13.027 trillion of the previous day.
The positive outlook of the market was largely driven by gains recorded in the shares of Nestle Nigeria, Presco, Dangote Sugar Refinery, Cadbury Nigeria and Guaranty Trust Bank, among others.
Market breadth consequently closed positive with Nestle Nigeria leading 20 gainers against 16 losers topped by Okomuoil.
The gainers chart today was led by Nestle Nigeria, adding N75 (6.12%) to settle at N1300 per share.it was followed by Presco with a gain of 325 kobo (9.39%) to close at N37.85 per share. Dangote Sugar was the next in line after appreciating by 105 kobo (8.24%) to close at N13.80 per share.
While Cadbury Nigeria went up by 80 kobo (8.89%) to close at N9.8 per share, Guaranty Trust Bank rounded of the top five gainers’ chart, hitching up 20 kobo (0.68%) to finish at N29.6 per share.
On the flip side, Okomu Oil shed N5.35 (-9.73%) to settle at N49.65 per share to lead the losers’ chart. FBN Holdings followed with a loss of 55 kobo (-7.33%) to close at n6.95 per share. Lafarge Africa dipped 30 kobo (-2.10%) to finish at N14 per share.
While Access Bank’s share price fell by 25 kobo (-2.49%) to finish at N9.80 per share, United Bank for Africa declined by 15 kobo (-2.00%) to round off the top five losers’ chart at N7.35 per share.
In terms of sector by sector performance on the day, the NSE Consumer Goods Index Closed up by 2.73 per cent due to the rise in the shares of Cadbury (+8.89%), Dangsugar (+8.24%) and Nestle (+6.12%), respectively.
The NSE Industrial Goods Index dipped (0.49%) on account of the losses posted by Wapco (-2.10%).
Similarly, the NSE Banking Index depreciated by 0.32 per cent largely driven by sell-offs in FBN Holdings (-7.33%), FCMB (-3.35%), ACCESS (-2.49%), UBA (-2.00%), STERLNBANK (-1.96%) and ZENITHBANK (-0.27%), while the NSE Oil & Gas Index fell by 0.12 per cent basically due to the depreciation in the share price of OANDO (-1.03%).
A look at the activity chart showed that Zenith Bank topped the activity chart trading 42.34 million shares valued at N798.19 million. This was followed by Guaranty Trust Bank with 26.01 million shares turnover worth N775.73 million, while FBN Holdings exchanged 19.75 million shares valued at N140.49 million.
Transnational Corporation sold 16.75 million shares valued at N17.21 million, while Fidelity Bank traded 15.15 million shares worth N30.77 million
At the end of the first trading day of the week, the total volume of shares traded increased by 11.21 per cent with an exchange of 230.65 million shares worth N3.21 billion achieved in 4,254 deals in contrast with a turnover of 207.40 million shares valued at N2.83 billion transacted in 3,630 deals on Friday.
Commenting on the market positive trend, an analyst at FSDH, Jide Solanke said, the drift by banks, PFAs and other high net worth investors to the Nigerian equities market was largely due to the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s policy on fixed income securities that barred non-banks, individuals or cooperates from participating in Open Market Operation, OMO.
He, however, said the bullish run may not be sustained except there is significant improvement in the macroeconomic environment, as it affects businesses or investments.
Comments are closed.