By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday inched up 0.17 percent on a “last minute” market rally as all-share index (ASI) closed at 34,355.31 points, while market capitalisation added N20.76 billion to close at N11.67trillion.
Cordros daily market update say about ten minutes before the closing bell, the market rallied bringing the current Month-to-Date (M-t-D) and Year-to-Date (Y-t-D) returns to a negative 1.03 percent and 0.87 percent respectively.
According to the report, three (3) of the five (5) NSE sector indices mirrored the broader market direction. “The Industrial index advanced the most with a 0.59 percent increase, the Oil/Gas index followed with 0.49 percent gain, while the Insurance index also added 0.28 percent,” Cordros added.
On the contrary, the Consumer Goods continued its downward trend with a 0.24 percent decline, whereas the Banking index dropped by a marginal 0.08 percent.
At the close of business on the Nigerian bourse, market breadth maintained a positive outlook with 31 gainers and 15 losers.
Foam maker, Vono Products Plc for the third consecutive time since last week Friday emerged top gainer with a gain of 0.14 kobo per share, while drugmaker, May & Baker Nigeria Plc for the second straight session since Tuesday topped the losers chart with a loss of 0.09 kobo per share same margin recorded yesterday.
In terms of turnover, volume traded on the Nigerian equities market at the close of today’s business plunged by 42.71 percent to 309.72 million shares, valued at N3.72billion and traded in 5,386 deals.
“We expect the market to gain tomorrow as investors anticipate the change of government,” the Cordros report affirmed.
