Equities market sustain rebound as ASI gains 0.6%
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) equities market segment sustained upward trend on Wednesday with a growth of 0.61 per cent, as investors continued to position in high capitalised stocks.
The NSE All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 160.43 points or 0.61 per cent to close at 26,415.54 basis points against 26,255.11 basis points on Tuesday.
Consequently, the Month-to-Date return gained 0.8 per cent turned positive, while Year-to-Date loss moderated to -1.6 per cent.
Similarly, the market capitalisation inched N83 billion to close at N13.765 trillion compared with N13.681 trillion on Tuesday.
The upturn was impacted by gains recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which are, Nigerian Breweries, UACN, Access Bank, Ecobank Transnational Corporation and FBN Holdings.
Analysts at Afrinvest expected market gains in subsequent trading days of the week due to the opportunity for bargain hunting.
Analysts at APT Securities said, “Market activities moderated on the back of improved sentiment as investors halt panic sell-off.
“This improvement was augmented by 20.67per cent drop in Volume of trades. Value followed suit to record 44.74per cent decrease from the previous level.”
All sectors indices closed positive — Insurance (+2.8per cent), Banking (+1.7per cent), Consumer Goods (+0.82per cent), and Industrial Goods (+0.37per cent) indices – save for the Oil & Gas index which declined by 0.7per cent following a selloff in ARDOVA (10.0per cent).
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Market breadth closed positive with 22 gainers and 10 decliners.
NEM Insurance and Royal Exchange recorded the highest gain in percentage terms, appreciating by 10 per cent each, to close at N1.87 and 22k per share, respectively.
AXA Mansard Insurance followed with 9.80 per cent to close at N1.68 per share.
FBN Holdings rose by 9.71 per cent to close at N5.65, while ETI appreciated by 9.26 per cent to close at N5.90 per share.
On the other hand, Ardova, formerly Forte Oil led the losers’ chart in percentage terms, dropping by 10 per cent to close at N15.30 per share.
Deap Capital Management and Trust followed with 8.33 per cent to close at 33k, while Consolidated Hallmark Insurance declined by 7.41 to close at 25k per share.
Chams lost 4.76 per cent to close at 20k, while Law Union and Rock Insurance dipped four per cent to close at 96k per share.
