Stocks rise on earnings as index gains 1.12%

Nigerian stocks rallied on Monday with the major indices closing positive as traders bought and sold shares on positive earnings reports.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange’s All-Share Index rose by 1.12 per cent to close at 37,562.50 basis points, erasing 418.85 points of the 1182.64 points lost last week when the index fell for five consecutive days.

Similarly, the market capitalisation of the listed equities increased by 1.12 per cent or N132bn to N11.896tn, up from N11.764tn recorded on Friday.

The NSE-30 Index gained 0.95 per cent or 16.7 basis points to close at 1,758.92 points, on Monday, up from 1,742.22 points on Friday, while the Consumer Goods Index rose by 7.07 basis points or 0.67 per cent to close at 1,053.72 points.

The NSE’s Banking Index also gained 1.49 per cent or 5.94 points to close at 404.38 points.

The Chief Executive Officer, Enterprise Stockbrokers Plc, Mr. Rotimi Fakayejo, who attributed last week’s losses to the outcome of the decision by the Monetary Policy Committee to increase Cash Reserve Requirement for Banks to 50 per cent, said the rally in the market on Monday was due to impressive results being posted by companies.

He said, “The drop last week was as a result of the MPC whereby the CRR was increased from eight per cent to 50 per cent, whereby a lot of people envisaged that the earnings of the banks were going to drop, but for this week – starting from late last week – results started coming in and majority of them that came were actually very good. Dangote Cement Plc, for instance, had its bottomline increase by 62 per cent; UAC, had about 42 per cent. So, that is responsible for the reserve we have seen this week.”

The banking sub-sector maintained its lead on the activity chart, accounting for 45 per cent of the total volume traded.

In the sub-sector, investors traded 90.822 million shares worth N728.782m in 1,876 deals.

In all, investors staked N1.709bn on 197.747 million shares in 5,466 deals with a total of 34 stocks recording price appreciation, while 19 depreciated.

 

Source: Punch (by Simon Ejembi)