Earning opportunities drive early market reversal

Expectations of earnings from first quarter dividend declaration on Thursday reversed declining market trend as more investors take positions in progressive companies.
The NSE All Share-Index (ASI) thus closed higher at 25,170.36 points compared to 24,986.02 points posted in previous session when the ASI shed 0.57 percent, reducing yea- to-date losses to -6.29 per cent.

The market capitalization also increased by N63.8 billion to close at N8.710 trillion in comparison with N49.6 billion lost on Wednesday when the market cap closed at N8.647 trillion.

The industrial Index outperformed other sectoral indices by 2.43 percent on account of the 5 percent increase in Dangote Cement’s Share price on Thursday, while the Banking, Consumer Goods, Oil and Gas and Main Board indices closed in red.
Meanwhile, trading on the floor of the NSE recorded a total of 16 equities that advanced against 9 equities that declined.

Price appreciation recorded in Dangote Cement lifted the Nigerian equities market on Thursday to post a growth of 0.74 percent.

Dangote Cement and Nestle led the day’s 16 gainers by 5 percent each to close at N159.75 and N725.55 per share respectively, Medview Airline appreciated 4.90 percent to close at N1.50 per share, NEM added 4.82 percent to close at 87 kobo per share, while Honeywell Flour Mills grew 4.35 percent to close at 96 kobo per share.

Nigerian Breweries topped the day’s 9 losers by 5 percent to close at N130.36 per share, Guaranty Trust Bank was next with a decline of 4.87 percent to close at N24.61 per share, Nigerian Aviation Handling Company dropped 4.78 percent to close at N2.19 per share, Transcorp lost 4 percent to close at 72 kobo per share and Forte Oil lost 3.18 percent to close at N50.50 per share.

At the top of the day’s trading activities were Zenith Bank with N45 million shares worth N659 million, Fidelity Bank was next with 34.7 million shares valued at N30.4 million while Guaranty Trust Bank emerged the third most traded stock with 33.9 million units of shares worth N828.9 million.

United Capital and UBA also made it to the top five traded stocks for the day, having transacted 14.8 million and 12.7 million units of shares sold each, worth N34.5 million and N63.5 million respectively.