Stock Market Records ₦16 billion Gain on Bullish Sentiment
The Nigerian stock market records ₦16 billion gain on Monday as bullish sentiment return to the local bourse after profit-taking in the first week in 2021.
The domestic equities market began trading this week with an 8 basis points (bps) gain as the benchmark index advanced to 40,150.78 points.
The positive performance was driven by buying interest in ZENITH (+0.8%), INTBREW (+2.5%) and FLOURMILL (+2.8%).
Consequently, the year to date return improved to -0.3% while market capitalisation advanced by ₦16 billion to settle at ₦21.2 trillion.
Activity level varied as volume traded rose marginally by 0.7% to 335.7m units while value traded fell 31.8% to ₦2.5 billion.
The most traded stocks by volume were MBENEFIT (104.2m units), MANSARD (24.3m units) and WAPCO (14.4m units).
Meanwhile OKOMUOIL (₦462.8m), ZENITH (₦344.7m) and WAPCO (₦320.5m) topped by value.
Afrinvest hinted that performance across sectors was bullish as 3 of 6 indices under its coverage gained, 1 lost and both the AFR-ICT and Industrial Goods indices closed flat.
The Insurance index was the lone loser, down 0.7% due to sell-offs in MANSARD (-3.4%) and LINKASSURE (-4.7%).
On the flip side, the Oil & Gas index led gainers, up 5.7% due to buying interest in ARDOVA (+9.8%) and OANDO (+4.2%).
Similarly, the Consumer Goods and Banking indices rose 0.5% and 0.2% respectively, buoyed by price appreciation in INTBREW (+2.5%), FLOURMILL (+2.8%), ZENITH (+0.8%), and ACCESS (+0.6%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth fell to 1.1x from then 3.5x recorded previously as 27 stocks advanced against 24 decliners.
ARDOVA (+9.8%), MAYBAKER (+9.8%) and BERGER (+9.5%) were the best-performing tickers.
However, CUTIX (-10.0%), BOCGAS (-10.0%) and CAVERTON (-7.1%) were the losers.
“We anticipate that bargain hunting activities would dominate trading this week”, Afrinvest stated.
Today, the Chapel Hill Denham’s Paramount Equity Fund (PEF) and the Women Investment Fund (WIF) gained 30bps and 20bps flat respectively.
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Stock Market Records ₦16 billion Gain on Bullish Sentiment