Equities market maintains upward trend as market index up 15 basis points in mid-week trading

 

Mid-Week trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) maintained upward movement as buying interest in Stanbic IBTC shares with 4.5 percent, FBN Holdings Plc with 1 percent and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc 0.2 percent gains drove the benchmark index up 15 basis points to settle at 25,330.10 points.

As a result, investors gained N20 billion as market capitalisation advanced to N13.2 trillion while year till date loss moderated to -5.6 percent.

Activity level was mixed as volume traded fell 28.1 percent to 180.7 million units while value traded rose 16 percent to N1.4 billion.

The top traded stocks by volume were Fidelity Bank Plc with 26.6 million units, UBA Plc with 19.5 million units and Access Bank Plc with 19 million units of share while Nestle Nigeria Plc by N198.1 million, Zenith Bank Plc N172.8 million and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc N159.5 million led by value.

At the end of the trading, performance across sectors was mixed as 2 indices under the coverage lost, 1 gained while 3 closed flat. The Insurance and Banking indices closed negative, down 92 basis points and 3 basis points respectively owing to price depreciation in UBA Plc by 1.5 percent, Cornerstone Insurance Plc with 9.7 percent and Custodian and Allied Assurance with 2.0 percent.

On the flip side, the Consumer Goods index was the lone gainer, up 16 basisi points due to buying interest in PZ Plc which led to 5 percent gain, Champion Breweries Plc 7.1 percent gain and Guinness Nigeria Plc 1.3 percent gain.

Lastly, the Oil & Gas, Industrial Goods and AFR-ICT indices closed flat.

However, investor sentiment strengthens as market breadth (advance/decline ratio) advanced to 3.0x from the 0.8x recorded previously as 24 stocks gained against the 8 that declined.

FTN Cocoa led the gainers chart with 10 percent, while Northern Nigerian Flour Mills appreciated by 9.8 percent and UPL Plc rose by 9.6 percent.

On the other hand, Cornerstone Insurance Plc 9.7 percent, African Prudential Plc 6.7 percent and WAPIC Insurance Plc 2.9 percent lost the most.