The Nigerian stock exchange extended its bullish close into the second consecutive day at the close of yesterday’s trading session, following Friday’s comfortable close. Notably, the climb was propelled by bargaining hunting in MTNN (+1.2%) and ZENITH (+1.4%), as investors sought to take advantage of depressed prices after a period of bearish dominance. As a result, the NGX All-Share Index (NGX-ASI) climbed 51bps, to close the day at 46,867.9points, with market capitalisation gaining N236.5bn to close at N25.3tn. Thus, the bourse’s YTD return strengthened to 9.7%. On the side of equity market activities, the average volume and value of shares traded saw a 46.0% and 118.0% improvement to settle at 224.6m shares and N3.8bn worth of stocks traded.
On a sectoral level, performance mirrored positive investor sentiment at yesterday’s trading session, as three (3) out of five (5) of the stocks we cover closed in the green, leaving one (1) sector in the red zone and the other flat. The Banking sector (+2.8%) spearheaded the gain largely on the back of observed buy interests in ZENITH (+4.4%), UBN (+3.3%), and FIDELITY (+5.3%). Trailing behind were the Insurance (+1.4%) and the Industrial (+0.2%) sectors, owing to share price appreciation in MANSARD (+3.7%), AIICO (+3.0%), WAPIC (+7.5%), WAPCO (+3.4%) and CUTIX (+8.1%). However, the Consumer Goods sector closed flat, with the Oil & Gas (-0.2%) sector standing alone in the red zone, owing to sell pressures in OANDO (-1.0%).
Investor sentiment strengthened to 2.5x as 27 tickers showed advancement while 11 tickers declined, as assessed by the market breadth (gainers to losers’ ratio). Looking ahead to the rest of the week, we expect continued bargain hunting, but we reiterate that the broader equities market remains on a bearish trajectory. The recent bullish momentum is a short-term reversal and absence of any underlying positive trigger will likely see the rebound short-lived.
