Market index gained further at the end of yesterday trading session on the back of bullish performance sustained by bargained hunting. The domestic equities market advanced 0.5% on Thursday trading session to settle at 29,347.62 points following gains in bellwether stocks – GUARANTY (+2.1%), FBNH(+6.1%) and UBA (+2.4%).
As a result, market capitalisation rose by N57.9 billion to N11.0 trillion while yield to date (YTD) return moderated to -6.6%. However, activity level weakened as volume and value traded shed 45.5% and 18.2% to 224.0 million units and N2.0 billion respectively.
Read Also: 8 out of 10 most valuable stocks record negative return
ZENITH (45.4 million units), LASACO (42.3 million units) and ACCESS (21.7 million units) were the top trades by volume while ZENITH (N927.7 million), GUARANTY (N376.9 million) and STANBIC (N135.3 million) led the top trades by value.
Performance across sectors was mixed as 3 of the 5 indices under our coverage trended northwards while 1 closed flat. The Insurance index led advancers, up 1.9% following bargain hunting in NEM (+10.0%) and NIGERINS (+10.0%).
The Banking and Industrial Goods indices trailed, appreciating by 1.1% and 0.8% respectively on the back of buying interest in GUARANTY (+2.1%), FBNH (+6.1%), UBA (+2.4%) and WAPCO (+3.9%) while the Oil & Gas index closed flat for the second consecutive trading session despite profit taking in ETERNA (-8.1%). On the flip side, the Consumer Goods index fell 0.1% on account of losses in PZ (-9.7%) and DANGFLOUR (-5.9%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 2.1x from 1.3x recorded in the previous trading session as 15 stocks advanced against 7 decliners. NEM (+10.0%), NIGERINS (+10.0%) and FIDELITY (+8.7%) were the best performing stocks while IKEJAHOTEL (-9.8%), ABCTRANS (-8.3%) and ETERNA (-8.0%) led decliners.
“Although we witnessed bargain hunting by investors during mid-week, we still maintain an overall bearish outlook in the near term”, Afrinvest said.
