Renewed buy interest in banking and consumer goods counters especially ZENITH (+5.0%), UBA (+6.3%) and NESTLE (+1.9%) halted a 7-day bearish run at the Nigerian equities market Wednesday.
The local bourse benchmark index, the NSEASI rose 1.1 percent to close at 42,171.80 points while year-to-date (YTD) gain improved to 10.3 percent.
Accordingly, market capitalisation gained N166.4 billion to settle at N15.1 trillion.
The day’s performance saw activity level improved as volume and value traded advanced 10.7 percent and 28.1 percent to 520.7 million units and N4.7 billion respectively.
Sector performance was largely positive as four of five indices closed northwards. The banking index recorded the highest gain, up 2.7 percent on renewed interest in ZENITH (+5.0%), UBA (+6.3%) and ACCESS (+5.0%).
Similarly, price appreciation in MANSARD (+4.0%), WAPIC (+4.9%), NESTLE (+1.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%) pushed the insurance and consumer goods indices 1.3 percent and 1.0 percent higher respectively.
The industrial goods index followed, up 0.2 percent on the back of gains in BETAGLASS (+4.9%) and BERGER (+4.8%). On the other hand, the oil & gas index was the lone loser, falling 0.3 percent largely due to selling pressures in FORTE (+1.8%) and TOTAL (+0.4%).
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Market breadth (advance/decline ratio), which measures investor sentiment, improved to 1.3x from 0.4x recorded previously consequent on 25 stocks advancing against 19 stocks that declined.
The best performing stocks were SKYE (+10.0%), FCMB (+9.8%) and DIAMOND (+7.8%) while FIRSTALUM (-9.1%), LASACO (-5.9%) and ABCTRANS (-5.0%) were the worst performers.
The rebound, according to analysts, was in line with expectation as they foresaw some bargain hunting on some of the stocks that had depreciated in the course of the reign of the bears.
“Following the improvement in investor sentiment, we anticipate positive market performance till the end of the week. We also expect sustained improvement in market activity as investors take position in stocks with attractive valuation,” analysts at Afrinvest noted.
In the NASD OTC Exchange, total volume and value traded stood at 577,500 units and N89.3 million respectively.
