The Nigerian equities market Monday opened the week with a bullish as benchmark index, the NSEASI, advanced 0.06 percent to 37,651.89 points while year-to-date (YTD) loss moderated to 1.5 percent.

Accordingly, market capitalisation gained N8.1 billion to close at N13.6 trillion.

The day’s positive performance was on account of gains in DANGCEM (+0.9%); ex-DANGCEM, market performance would have been down 27bps.

Despite the positive close, activity level weakened as volume and value traded declined 11.5 percent and 1.8 percent respectively to 151.2 million units and N2.0 billion respectively.

The top traded stocks by volume were ACCESS (21.7m), ZENITH (13.9m) and FBNH (12.7m) while ZENITH (N341.2m), GUARANTY (N237.5m) and ACCESS (N225.6m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Sector performance was bearish as three of five major indices declined. The consumer goods index led laggards, down 8.4 percent due to sell pressures in DANGSUGAR (-2.7%) and NASCON (-5.3%). The oil & gas index followed, shedding 5.0 percent as investors exited positions in CONOIL (-1.8%) while the industrial goods index fell 1.6 percent, majorly due to sell-offs in WAPCO (-2.6%) and CCNN (-4.6%), which offset the impact of gains in DANGCEM (+0.9%).

On the other hand, the insurance and banking indices gained 8.3 percent and 0.1 percent respectively, buoyed by buy interest in CUSTODIAN (+2.7%), EQUITYASSURE (+4.6%) and ETI (+2.0%)

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) remained unchanged at 0.7x as 20 stocks advanced while 30 declined. The best performing stocks were CAVERTON (+10.0%), CILEASING (+9.8%) and FIRSTALUM (+7.9%) while UNITYBANK (-9.0%), MULTIVERSE (-8.3%) and DUNLOP (-6.9%) led laggards.

The positive week opening, according to analysts, would advise investors seek bargain hunting in fundamentally sound stocks to drive a positive performance in the market in subsequent sessions.