Nigeria equities claw back losses as price appreciation leads to 21.9% rise in traded value

The Nigerian equities market rebounded Thursday from a 4-day losing streak as traded value rose 21.9 percent to N3.6 billion, pushing the benchmark index by 0.2 percent to close at 32,354.78 points as year-to-date gain romped to 20.4 percent.

Market capitalization consequently increased by N18.1 billion to settle at N11.2 trillion. Top influencer of Thursday positive performance was Dangote Cement  (DANGCEM), which chalked up 1.9 percent gain; aside Dangcem, the all share index would have lost 0.2 percent.

The positive performance confirmed analysts’ calls that the market would return positive in the last two trading sessions of the week.

“While today’s performance is largely attributable to an uptick in DANGCEM, we envisage that as the H1:2017 earnings season approaches, early-bird investors will likely start taking positions,  ahead of release of corporate scorecards,” analysts at Afrinvest noted.

Activity level of trading was however mixed as volume traded fell 45.9 percent to 168.5 million units as against a 21.9 percent rise in value traded.

Sector performance was largely positive with consumer goods index being the sole loser, down 1.1 percent as a result of sell-offs in FLOURMILL (-4.9%) and HONYFLOUR (-4.8%).

The oil & gas index led gainers with a 1.2 percent return due to bargain hunting in OANDO (+5.0%) and SEPLAT (+1.2%), while the insurance index with +0.9 percent followed as a result of gains in MANSARD (+4.9%).

Likewise, the banking and industrial Goods indices rebounded 0.5 percent apiece on account of bargain hunting in ZENITH (+0.9%), UBA (+1.4%), ACCESS (+1.1%) and DANGCEM (+1.9%).

Investor sentiment equally improved as market breadth rose to 0.9x (from 0.4x Wednesday) after 20 stocks advanced against 23 decliners. OANDO (+5.0%), MANSARD (+4.9%) and 7UP (+4.8%) led the gainers chart while MAYBAKER (-9.4%), UACN (-5.0%) and FIDSON (-4.9%) led the laggards.

In the NASD OTC exchange, four counters traded with total volume and value of transactions closing at 404,972 thousand units and N17.3 million respectively. AFRILAND (+9.8%), CSCS (+9.4%) and NASD (+9.7%) closed in the green while WAMCO (-4.7%) closed in the red.