Equities halt 3-day loss as investors gain N73.8bn

Nigeria’s equities market reversed a three-day negative trend on Thursday, as NSE market capitalisation advanced by N73.8billion to close at N12.517trn, as against a decline of N342.7b recorded previously.

The NSE ASI also appreciated by 0.59 per cent to close at 36,316.58 points as against 2.68 per cent depreciation recorded in previous session, improving the Year-to-Date (YTD) returns, to currently stand at 34.93 per cent.

Although the price movement table showed the day ended with 15 gainers to 28 losers, price appreciation of blue chip stocks such as Dangote Cement, Zenith Bank and FBN Holdings boosted market performance.

Sectoral performance also turned out better, with the NSE Oil&Gas and Consumer goods indices, the day’s losers, as against an all-round southward close, recorded by sectors in the previous trading session.

The NSE Industrial Goods Index improved by 0.85 per cent, the NSE Insurance index added 0.34 per cent and the NSE Banking Index added 0.05 per cent, While the NSE Oil and Gas Index fell 1.17 per cent and the NSE Consumer goods depreciated by 0.42 per cent.

Fidson led the day’s gainers chart, with a growth of 5 per cent to close at N3.12, May Baker rose by 4.98 per cent to close at N2.95, Flourmill added 4.94 per cent to close at N28.89, Livestock feeds gained 4.94per cent to close at 85 kobo and Continental Re-insurance fell 4.84 per cent to close at N1.30. Other gainers were Wema Bank, Dangote Cement, UPL, Zenith Bank, Champion Breweries, Nascon, Dangote Sugar, Custodyins, FBNH and Total.

Conversely, Eterna Plc led the decliners with a loss of 6.01 per cent to close at N3.44. Mobil trailed with a loss of 5 per cent to close at N225.06, NAHCO dropped 4.88 per cent to close at N3.12, CCNN declined by 4.73 per cent to close at N9.67 and Cutix fell 4.11 per cent to close at N2.10.

Market turnover closed with 225.1mn shares worth N5.479m exchanged in 5,110 deals compared to a total of 224.8mn shares worth N5.1b traded by investors in 4,822 deals previously.

Top five companies to boost market turnover were, Custodian and Allied Insurance which topped activity chart with the sale of 30.3m shares valued at N115.1m. Zenith Bank, came second with the sale of 26mn shares worth N597.4m. GTBank exchanged 24.7mn shares worth N924.8m, FBN Holdings traded 14.6m shares valued at N87m, while FCMB transacted 14.1m shares at N15.7m.