Equities market gains ₦258.5 billion amid lockdown extension

The equities segment of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) gained traction Tuesday amid lockdown extension in Lagos, Ogun State and the FCT by 14 days.

Market activities ended on a bullish note as the local bourse gained 232 basis points (bps) to close at 21,879.95 points.

The performance was attributed to 3.4% price appreciation in DANGCEM, 3.2% in MTNN and 8.5% in GUARANTY stocks.

Thus, equities investors gained ₦258.5 billion as market capitalisation advanced to ₦11.4 trillion while YTD loss moderated to 18.5%.

Afrinvest noted that activity level was mixed as volume advanced 77.2% to 557.8 million units while value traded declined 47.9% to ₦2.6 billion.

The most active stocks by volume were FBNH which traded 51.8 million units, UBA did 35.6 million units and ZENITH 35.6 million units.

Meanwhile, ZENITH traded ₦505.5 million, GUARANTY ₦387.8 million and FBNH ₦243.5 million led the value chart.

Across the 6 sectors under Afrinvest coverage, performance was bullish as 4 indices recorded gains.

The Banking and Consumer Goods indices recorded the best performance, up 4.5% and 2.2% respectively following bargain hunting in GUARANTY (+8.5%), ZENITH (+3.6%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+9.9%).

Similarly, the AFR-ICT and Oil & Gas indices ended on a positive note on the back of gains in MTNN (+3.2%), CONOIL (+9.9%) and OANDO (+10.0%).

On the flip side, the Insurance and Industrial Goods indices were the laggards as both indicators declined 26bps and 14bps respectively.

The losses were sustained on the back of losses in NEM with share price down 3.4%, BUACEMENT dropped by 1.3% and WAPCO value knocked off by 2.0%.

Meanwhile, investor sentiment as measured by market breadth strengthened to 2.4x from the 2.2x recorded in previous session as 29 stocks gained relative to 12 losers.

The top gainers were OANDO (+10.0%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+9.9%) and CONOIL (+9.9%) while PZ (-9.1%), REDSTAREX (-5.9%) and LASACO (-4.4%) led the losers.

“We expect the decision of OPEC+ to ease pressure in the near term, despite the pandemic”, Afrinvest stated.

Equities market gains ₦258.5 billion amid lockdown extension