Stocks Gain N134bn as Bargain Hunters Butcher Bears

September 19, 2019
local bourse bear market

By Dipo Olowookere

Transactions on the trading floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) ended bullish on Wednesday after bargain hunters dealt a huge blow on bears terrorizing the market in the past two previous sessions despite the positive news of the appointment of an economic squad by President Muhammadu Buhari and the easing of inflation to 11.02 percent in August 2019 as announced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.

The actions of investors in mopping up some value stocks trading at cheap prices led to the 1.00 percent appreciation printed by the market at the midweek session. This led to the market breadth closing positive with 24 price gainers led by Stanbic IBTC and 13 price losers led by Forte Oil.

In addition, the renewed buying pressure pushed the All-Share Index (ASI) up by 274.57 points to 27,681.61 points from 27,407.04 points, while the market capitalization was boosted by N133.7 billion to N13.475 trillion from N13.342 trillion.

Business Post reports that Stanbic IBTC, which topped the price risers’ chart on Wednesday a day after the company assured its stakeholders of its commitment to long-term value, appreciated by N2.45k to settle at N39.95k per share.

GTBank improved its share price by N1.30k to close at N29.80k per unit, MTN Nigeria gained N1 to finish at N140 per unit, Ecobank garnered 80 kobo to trade at N8.80k per share, while Lafarge Africa rose by 60 kobo to end at N15.30k per unit.

At the other side, Forte Oil led the decliners’ table with a loss of 35 kobo to close at N16 per share, while Champion Breweries fell by 11 kobo to settle at N1.14k per share, with Custodian Investment, FBN Holdings and UBA losing 5 kobo each to close at N5.95k, N5.40k and N6.35k respectively.

In terms of the level of transactions at the market yesterday, there was an improvement from what was recorded in the previous session.

A total of 379.5 million shares worth N5.4 billion exchanged hands in 3,923 deals compared with the 198.0 million equities valued at N2.9 billion traded in 3,830 deals in the previous session.

This indicated that the number of deals executed on Wednesday improved by 2.43 percent, while the volume of trades rose by 91.64 percent and the value of the transactions increased by 84.45 percent.

It was observed that banking stocks dominated the activity chart yesterday with GTBank emerging as the most traded equity with a turnover of 98.4 million units sold for N2.8 billion.

Access Bank transacted 40.7 million shares worth N314.5 million, FBN Holdings exchanged 40.1 million equities valued at N216.6 million, FCMB traded 20.1 million shares for N33.9 million, while Sterling Bank traded 17.6 million shares valued at N38.8 million.

The sectoral performance chart showed that the banking index rose by 2.99 percent, the industrial goods sector improved by 0.94 percent, the insurance space grew by 0.45 percent, while the consumer goods index appreciated by 0.27 percent.

However, the oil and gas index suffered a 0.19 percent decline at the trading session.

Dipo Olowookere

Dipo Olowookere is a journalist based in Nigeria that has passion for reporting business news stories. At his leisure time, he watches football and supports 3SC of Ibadan.

Mr Olowookere can be reached via [email protected]

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