Equities market sustain growth by 0.73 percent

The equities market sustained a positive trend on Tuesday, with the All Share Index advancing 0.73 percent to close at 29,276.99 points.

Market capitalisation also increasedN73 billion to settle at N10.121 trillion compared to N207 billion gained previous session (Friday when it closed at N10.048 trillion.

The day’s performance increase the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date gains to 13.66 percent and 8.94 percent respectively.

Sectoral Performance showed the Banking index recorded the largest gain with an improvement of 2.17 percent as investors demanded the shares of Zenith and Guaranty Bank that grew by 1.93 percent 1.47 percent each.

Likewise the Consumer Goods and Industrial Goods indices closed higher, with an increase of and 0.67 and 0.33 percent respectively following demand for Nigerian Breweries that added 0.69 percent, Flourmills that grew 4.99 percent, WAPCO that appreciated 1.16 percent, and DANGCEM that increased 0.18 percent.

Conversely, the Oil & Gas index shed 2.01 percent, as investors sold-off SEPLAT and OANDO that dropped 5.00 percent and 1.22 percent each, while the Insurance index closed flat.

Market breadth remained positive, with 29 gainers versus 17 losers.
Diamond Bank topped trading, by volume, with 194.2 million shares valued at N184.8 million, followed by Champion Breweries with 84 million shares worth N173.8 million, while Guaranty traded 76.6 million shares valued at N2.8 billion.

Zenith Bank also traded 68.7 million shares worth N1.4 billion, and FBN Holdings traded 66.2 million shares valued at N352.9 million.

The total volume traded increased to 832.52 million shares, valued at N7.59 billion, and exchanged in 6,259 deals.