On Thursday, the equities market maintained its bullish trend, with investors’ net worth increasing by N265 billion due to bargain hunting. The improved performance was attributed to investor interest in Tier-one bank equities.
The market capitalization increased by N265 billion, or 0.62 percent, to N42.694 trillion, up from N42.429 trillion on Wednesday. As a result, the All-Share Index closed at 78,020.54, up 0.62 percent or 482.97 points from the previous session’s closing of 77,537.57.
Year-to-date (YTD) returns increased to 4.34 percent. Meanwhile, 984.19 million shares worth N11.16 billion were traded in 12,976 transactions. As a result, market breadth closed positive, indicating that transaction turnover concluded higher than the previous day.
Investors buying interest in Tier-one banks namely, Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) and Dangote Sugar was responsible for the improved performance.
However, FCMB led the volume chart with 106.81 million units traded while Fidelity Bank led the value chart with deals worth N1.31 billion. On the gainer’s table, Wema Bank and LearnAfrica led in percentage terms of 10 per cent each to close at N6.71 and N3.19 per share, respectively.
Transcorp followed with a gain of 9.93 per cent to close at N11.51 per share.Ikeja Hotel also gained 9.92 per cent to close at N7.58, while Sterling Nigeria increased by 9.83 per cent to close at N5.25 per share.
On the looser’s table, Multiverse Mining and Exploration led with a loss of 9.97 per cent to close at N20.22 per share.
It was followed by Meyer which lost 9.75 per cent to close at N3.24 per share. TrippleG depreciated by 9.30 per cent to close at N1.95, while Johnholt lost 8.62 per cent to close at N2.12 per share. Also, ABC Transport was down by 8.25 per cent to close at 89k per share.
Analysts at Vetiva Securities Ltd. said, “We expect a positive close to the week, while focus remain on the Tier- two banks.
