The local bourse posted a bullish performance yesterday as the All Share Index (ASI) rose 0.6% to 40,788.68 points while YTD return increased to 6.7%. As a result, investors gained N92.2bn as market capitalisation increased to N14.7tn. Price appreciations in bellwethers – SEPLAT (+4.0%), ZENITH (+1.7%) and UBA (+3.3%) – accounted for yesterday’s bullish performance.
Similarly, activity level strengthened as volume and value of shares traded surged 732.4% and 248.9% to 1.6bn units and N10.9bn respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were FCMB (952.6m), UBA (382.5m) and ZENITH (65.2m) while the top traded stocks by value were led by UBA (N4.2bn), FCMB (N2.4bn) and ZENITH (N1.8bn).
Bullish Sector Performance
Sector performance was largely bullish across 4 of 5 indices that we track. Only the Insurance index recorded a bearish performance, down 0.7%, due to losses in EQUITYASSURE (-2.1%). On the other hand, the Oil & Gas index appreciated the most, up 2.0% as investors took position in SEPLAT (+4.0%) and OANDO (+9.3%).
Similarly the Banking and Consumer Goods indices advanced 1.3% and 0.6% respectively on account of gains in ZENITH (+1.7%), UBA (+3.2%), NESTLE (+0.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.7%). Likewise, the Industrial Goods index rose 0.1% due to price appreciation in WAPCO (+3.6%).
Investor Sentiment Strengthens
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.8x from 1.3x recorded yesterday as 34 stocks advanced against 18 stocks that declined. The top performing stocks were UNITY (+9.5%), OANDO (+9.3%) andSKYE (+9.1%) while FIDSON (-5.0%), CILEASING (-5.0%) and AGLEVENT (-4.8%) led laggards.
In line with our projection, we expect market performance to remain buoyed by increased bargain hunting as investors take advantage of attractive entry prices in the market.
