Kindly Share This Story:

By Peter Egwuatu

The equity market on Thursday recorded an uptick performance as the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE All Share Index, NSE-ASI gained 0.62 percent, notching its first gain since the beginning of the New year (2019) after six consecutive declines.

This was majorly driven by gains in Banking and Industrial goods stocks. Market breadth closed positive, recording 21 gainers against 15 losers.

Specifically, ASI went up by 180.93 absolute points, representing a gain of 0.62 percent, closing at 29,517.73 points. Similarly, Market Capitalization increased by N67.47 billion representing a growth of 0.62 percent, closing at N11.01 trillion.

Market Year to Date, YtD return settled at -6.1 percent and market capitalisation inched higher by N67.5billion to N11.0trillion. Today’s performance was buoyed by gains in Guaranty (+6.1 percent), Dangote Cement (+0.9 percent) and Zenith Bank (-2.9 percent).

CBN to sell N823.4b worth of t-bills in Q1

Activity level strengthened as volume and value traded increased 64.1 percent to 385.4millin units and 36.6 percent to N3.1billion. The top traded stocks by volume were Custodian (120.3million units), Access Bank (60.5million units) and First Bank Nigeria Holding, FBNH (48.9million units) while the top traded stocks by value were Custodian (N697.6milliion), Zenith Bank (N515.5million) and FBNH (N347.2billion).

NSE market capitalisation dips N239bn, amid year end activities

The performance across sectors was mixed as three of the five indices closed in the green. The Banking Index recorded the highest gain, up 2.7 percent due to price appreciation in Zenith Bank (+2.86 percent) and Diamond Bank (+5.85 percent).

Similarly, the Industrial Goods and Oil & Gas indices trailed 2.2 percent and 0.1 percent respectively on the back gains of Dangote Cement (+0.9 percent ), WAPCO (+2.56 percent), CCNN (+4.85 percent), Forte Oil (+5.46 percent) and Eterna (+8.86 percent).

Zenith Bank/ Delta Principals’ Cup: Sponsors charge participants over fair play

On the flip side, the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices dipped 2.1 percent and 1.8 percent respectively dragged by losses in NEM Insurance (-10.0 percent), Linkage Assurance (-9.7 percent), Mutual Benefit (-4.8 percent ), Nestle Nigeria (-3.4 percent) and Guinness Nigeria (-10.0 percent).

Kindly Share This Story: