Equities rebound with N125bn gain

Nigerian equities made a comeback on Wednesday, rallying a net capital gain of N125 billion as investors deepened bargain-hunting in the high-cap stocks group.

After three successive negative trading sessions, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed on Wednesday with average day-on-day gain of 1.04 per cent, representing capital appreciation of N125 billion.

The rebound nudged the average year-to-date return to 31.01 per cent. With 20 decliners to 19 advancers, the rebound was driven mainly by large-cap stocks in the cement, banking and oil and gas sectors.

Aggregate market value of all quoted equities rose from its opening value of N12.012 trillion to close at N12.137 trillion. The All Share Index (ASI)-the main price index for the equities market, also rallied from its opening index of 34,846.82 points to close at 35,207.89 points.

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Most sectoral indices however closed negative, reflecting the underlying sell sentiment. The NSE Industrial Goods Index rose by 2.3 per cent while the NSE Oil & Gas Index appreciated by 1.5 per cent. On the negative side, The NSE Insurance Index dropped by 0.3 per cent. The NSE Banking Index dipped by 0.25 per cent while the NSE Consumer Goods Index slipped by 0.04 per cent.

Total Nigeria led the advancers with a gain of N7.90 to close at N231. Dangote Cement followed with a gain of N7.59 to close at N213.39. Seven-Up Bottling Company rose by N4.18 to close at N90. Forte Oil rallied N2 to close at N49.90. Lafarge Africa rose by 56 kobo to close at N49.10. Oando added 25 kobo to close at N5.90. Guaranty Trust Bank rose by 16 kobo to close at N38.70 while May and Baker Nigeria rose by 13 kobo to close at N2.77 per share.

On the negative side, Nestle Nigeria led the decliners with a drop of N3.89 to close at N1,225.01. Nascon Allied Industries declined by 65 kobo to close at N12.35. Stanbic IBTC Holdings dropped by 50 kobo to close at N39.50. Union Bank of Nigeria declined by 28 kobo to close at N5.72 while United Bank for Africa slipped by 25 kobo to close at N8.50 per share.

Total turnover stood at 137.35 million shares valued at N1.13 billion in 2,977 deals. The three most active stocks were Meyer, with 20.0 million shares; Access Bank, 14.92 million shares and Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, which recorded turnover of 12.08 million shares.

Analysts at Afrinvest Securities noted that while large-cap stocks provided a major boost on Wednesday, the closing gap between losers and gainers suggests that investors are cherry picking stocks which previously witnessed declines, hence there could be some more positive performance in subsequent sessions.

 

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