The Nigerian equities market Monday closed green as benchmark index added 0.08% to settle at 37,974.58 points. The day’s positive performance marked the 4th consecutive day of a positive close.
As a result, market year-to-date gain expanded to 41.3 percent as market cap increased by N10.8 billion to settle at N13.2 trillion.
The day’s positive performance was buoyed by buying interest in consumer goods bellwethers, NESTLE (+1.2%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%), as well as in FBNH (+2.5%).
However, activity level was mixed as volume traded marginally inched 1.0 percent higher to 500.2 million units, while value traded declined 11.4 percent to N6.4 billion.
Sector performance was mixed with three indices trending northwards and the other two indices closing in the red.
The consumer good index appreciated the most, up 0.4 percent owing to gains in NESTLE (+1.2%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%). Similarly, the insurance and industrial goods indices followed, rising 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent consequent on buying interest in LINKASSURE (+4.8%), AIICO (+1.8%) and DANGCEM (+0.3%).
Conversely, the losers were the banking and oil & gas indices, down 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. The banking index was dragged by losses in GUARANTY (-0.7%), UBA (-1.9%) and ZENITH (-0.3%) whereas the oil & gas index closed lower on account of price depreciation in MOBIL (-4.7%), FORTE (-2.2%) and TOTAL (-0.4%).
Despite the day’s positive close, market breadth weakened to 0.8x (from 1.6x on Friday) as 19 stocks advanced against 24 decliners. The top performing stocks are CADBURY (+10.1%), DIAMONDB (+8.7%) and CAVERTON (+4.9%), while the worst performers include FIDSON (-5.0%), GUINNESS (-5.0%) and CCNN (-4.9%).
“While we attribute the day’s gain to buying interest in some large cap stocks, we however observed profit taking in mid- and small- cap stocks which had rallied in recent days. Nevertheless, we expect market performance to be determined by year-end rebalancing by institutional investors,” analysts at Afrinvest noted.
