Nigeria equities market rebounds on bargain hunting in banking stocks as benchmark index gain 0.15%

Nigerian equities market rebounded Wednesday as bargain hunting in relatively low-priced quality banking stocks pushed up index by 0.15 percent to close at 35,358.6 points, while year-to-date (YTD) gain increased to 31.6 percent.

ZENITH (+1.6%), UBA (+2.4%) and STANBIC (+1.2%) were the major drivers of today’s performance. However, activity level softened as volume and value traded fell 72.6 percent and 53.0 percent to 174.1 million units and N2.7 billion respectively.

Sector performance was largely mixed as three of five indices closed in the green.

The banking index led gainers, up 0.6 percent on the back of price appreciation in ZENITH (+1.6%) and UBA (+2.4%). Similarly, upticks in TOTAL (+1.9%) nudged the oil & gas index to close 0.2 percent higher while the consumer goods index closed 3bps higher.

On the contrary, the insurance index was dragged 0.6 percent southwards following losses in CONTINSURE (-4.7%). The industrial goods index closed the day flat.

Investor sentiment strengthened as market breadth (advancers/decliners’ ratio) improved to 1.2x from 0.9x on Tuesday after 19 stocks advanced against 16 decliners.

The best performing stocks were CILEASING (+9.5%), NASCON (+5.0%) and VITAFOAM (+4.8%) while the worst performers were MRS (-5.0%), CONTINSURE (-4.7%) and LEARNAFRICA (-3.8%).

Wednesday’s performance gives hope for positive performance in subsequent trades as investors anticipate positive Q3:2017 earnings scorecards.