NSE LIVE! Equities upbeat ahead of Sallah celebration

In from Success Allantee …

The stock market sustained its positive performance today as highly capitalised stocks roused the market to average gain of 0.4 per cent, ahead of the Muslim’s Eid-el-Kabir celebration which started tomorrow. The stock market closed early this week following the declaration of Thursday and Friday as public holidays in celebration of the Muslim’s biggest festival.

Aggregate market capitalisation of all quoted equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) rose by N40 billion from its opening value of N10.457 trillion to close at N10.497 trillion. The benchmark index for the stock market, the All Share Index (ASI), indicated average day-on-day gain of 0.4 per cent to close at 30,543.17 points as against its opening index of 30,426.10 points. The sustained uptrend further reduced the negative average year-to-date return to -11.9 per cent.

With 22 advancers to 24 decliners, the market performance was boosted by gains recorded by several highly capitalised stocks, especially in the building materials sector. Most indices at the NSE also closed in the positive, showing the spread of the buying sentiments. The NSE Oil and Gas Index led with a gain of 1.3 per cent. The NSE Industrial Goods Index followed with a return of 0.7 per cent. The NSE Insurance Index rallied 0.6 per cent while the NSE Consumer Goods Index inched up by a basis point.

Forte Oil led the gainers with a gain of N8.90 to close at N239.99. Dangote Cement followed with a gain of N1.50 to close at N169.50. Stanbic IBTC Holdings rose by N1.05 to close at N22.12. Lafarge Africa added 54 kobo to close at N98. UACN Property Development Company gathered 37 kobo to close at N7.79. Unilever Nigeria chalked up 30 kobo to close at N46 while PZ Cussons Nigeria rose by 20 kobo to close at N26.20 per share.

On the negative side, Okomu Oil Palm led the losers with a drop of 85 kobo to close at N28.10. UAC of Nigeria dropped by 66 kobo to N30. Ashaka Cement declined by 48 kobo to N22.02. Guinness Nigeria dropped by 45 kobo to N154 while Vitafoam Nigeria dropped by 29 kobo to close at N5.55 per share.

Market activity increased as volume traded rose by 138.9 per cent to 466.9 million shares while value traded improved by 40.3 per cent to N4.4 billion. Zenith Bank was the most active stock with a turnover of 131.65 million shares valued at N2.41 billion. Sterling Bank followed with a turnover of 61.89 million shares worth N128.74 million.

“We believe today’s positive close was a reflection of continuous improvement in investors’ sentiment as the month of September draws to a close ahead of the expected Cabinet announcement. We expect the market to further strengthen in the week ahead on the possibility of cheery news from the presidency before the end of the month,” said analysts at Afrinvest Securities.

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