The bulls remained aggressive in today’s trade as the equities market extended the positive run, advancing 2.4% to close at 38,803.74 points. The performance was buoyed by buying interest in AIRTELAF (+10.0%), BUACEMENT (+9.1%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.8%). Accordingly, the YTD return improved to 44.6% as market capitalisation advanced ₦475.6bn to settle at ₦20.3tn. Activity level spiked as volume and value traded rose 238.6% and 82.2% to 1.5bn units and ₦18.7bn respectively. The most traded stocks by volume were VERITASKAP (121.2m units), FLOURMILL (51.2m units) and BUACEMENT (50.7m units) while BUACEMENT (₦2.8bn), AIRTELAF (₦2.0bn) and FLOURMILL (₦1.4bn) led the value table.
Bullish Sector Performance
Performance across the six sectors under our coverage was bullish as 4 sectors gained, 1 lost while the Oil & Gas indicator remained unchanged. The AFR-ICT and Industrial Goods indices climbed 5.8% and 3.1% respectively on the back of gains in AIRTELAF (+10.0%), BUACEMENT (+9.1%) and WAPCO (+0.2%). Similarly, the Consumer Goods and Banking indices rose 0.4% and 0.2% respectively, underpinned by gains in GUINNESS (+1.6%), VITAFOAM (+7.1%) and STERLING (+0.5%). Finally, the Insurance index was the lone loser, shedding 0.8% as investors sold off MANSARD (-3.0%).
Investor Sentiment Strengthens
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) advanced to 3.4x from the 0.7x recorded previously as 24 stocks gained against 7 decliners. ABCTRANS (+10.0%), AIRTELAF (+10.0%) and ETERNA (+10.0%) were the best performing tickers while FCMB (-4.0%), PZ (-3.6%) and LASACO (-3.1%) led the losers. Following the sustained buying interest in the local bourse, we expect the market to close the week bullish.
