Stock Market Rebounds by 0.40% as Investors Gain N78bn

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian stock market rebounded on Thursday by 0.40 per cent after it recorded a significant loss on Wednesday as a result of profit-taking.

Yesterday, a bit of bargain hunting was witnessed, especially in large-cap equities like Zenith Bank, the newly listed GT HoldCo, BUA Cement, amongst others.

As a result, the All-Share Index (ASI) moved up by 149.89 points to 37,954.35 points from 37,804.46 points, while the market capitalisation increased by N78 billion to N19.781 trillion from N19.703 trillion.

Data showed that only the insurance sector closed lower during the session and this was by 0.30 per cent as the industrial goods, banking, energy and consumer goods counters appreciated by 0.88 per cent, 0.61 per cent, 0.33 per cent and 0.20 per cent respectively.

Business Post reports that there were 20 price gainers yesterday, while there were 14 price losers, indicating that the market breadth closed positive.

Portland Paints finished on top of the price gainers’ chart on the trading day with a growth of 10.00 per cent to finish at N2.64 and was trailed by Mutual Benefits Assurance, which also grew by 10.00 per cent to settle at 44 kobo.

Learn Africa appreciated by 3.96 per cent to close at N1.05, Eterna gained 3.92 per cent to sell for N7.95, while Oando chalked up 3.45 per cent to trade at N3.00.

On the other side of the table, Juli was on top after its share price went down by 9.56 per cent to N1.23 and was closely followed by AIICO Insurance, which declined by 7.41 per cent to N1.00.

Chams depreciated by 4.76 per cent to sell for 20 kobo, Champion Breweries declined by 2.44 per cent to N2.00, while Honeywell Flour dropped 2.08 per cent to N1.41.

In terms of the level of activity, the market witnessed a 14.17 per cent rise in the value of shares transacted by investors, N1.8 billion versus N1.6 billion on Wednesday.

However, the volume of the share went down by 19.65 per cent to 167.4 million units from 208.4 million units just as the number of deals decreased by 3.24 per cent to 3,256 deals from 3,365 deals.

Just like on Wednesday, Zenith Bank was the most active stock on Thursday with the sale of 13.9 million units valued at N330.1 million.

Sovereign Trust Insurance transacted 12.8 million units worth N3.4 million, UBA traded 11.8 million units for N84.7 million, Mutual Benefits exchanged 11.0 million units worth N4.8 million, while FBN Holdings traded 8.9 million units valued at N63.4 million.