Buying Interest in Blue Chip Stocks Raised Market Cap by ₦199.5bn

Buying Interest in Blue Chip Stocks Raised Market Cap by ₦199.5bn

Buying interest in some bellwether shares raised stock market capitalisation by ₦199.5 billion on Tuesday amidst rising inflation rate.

At the close of trade, equities market recorded gains due to buying interest in DANGCEM (+3.7%), ZENITH (+4.0%) and WAPCO (+7.1%).

As a result, the benchmark index appreciated 110 basis points (bps) to 34,225.22 points.

Hence, market capitalisation improved by ₦199.5 billion to ₦18.4 trillion while year to date return rose to 31.2%.

Activity level varied as volume traded rose 27.0% to 264.2 million units while value traded fell 20.4% to ₦2.9 billion.

The most traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (36.5m units), GUARANTY (33.8m units) and ACCESS (23.4m units).

Meanwhile ZENITH (₦545.1m), AIRTELAF (₦538.6m) and GUARANTY (₦407.6m) led by value.

Afrinvest stated that performance across sectors was bullish as 4 of 6 indices under its coverage closed in the green.

The Consumer Goods index was the lone loser, down 9bps due to sustained sell-offs in INTBREW (-3.1%).

Conversely, the Insurance and Industrial Goods indices led the gainers with 3.5% and 2.4% gains respectively.

This was as a result of price appreciation in MANSARD (+9.1%), AIICO (+4.4%), DANGCEM (+3.7%) and WAPCO (+7.1%).

In the same vein, the Banking and Oil & Gas indices gained 2.0% and 0.4% respectively.

Again, this was on the back of price uptick in ZENITH (+4.0%), GUARANTY (+1.7%) and OANDO (+5.1%).

Then, the AFR-ICT index closed flat.

Read Also: Stock Market Opens Negative amidst Rising Headline Inflation Rate

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth increased to 2.1x from the 1.9x recorded in the previous session as 29 stocks gained against the 14 that declined.

LASACO (+10.0%), MANSARD (+9.4%) and FTNCOCOA (+8.3%) led the gainers.

Meanwhile REDSTAREX (-9.8%), UNITYBNK (-8.8%) and OMATEK (-8.3%) led the decliners.

“We believe current stock prices present attractive investment opportunities”, Afrinvest said.

Buying Interest in Blue Chip Stocks Raise Market Cap by ₦199.5bn