By Chinwendu Obienyi

Bullish sentiments in the shares of Airtel Africa, Seplat Energy, and Zenith Bank pushed Nigeria’s stock market capitalisation up by N417 billion at the close of trading on Wednesday.

After losing 0.1 per cent during the start of the week, on Monday, the domestic bourse closed in the green Tuesday, rising 0.6 per cent.

With an opening value of 44,655.89 points, the All Share Index (ASI) grew by 1.7 per cent to close at 45,430.14 points while market capitalisation rose N417.2 billion to close at N24.476 trillion. 

According to market data available on the NGX website, the volume and value of stocks traded rose by 7.5 per cent and 365.3 per cent respectively to 252.9 million units and N8.9 billion, exchanged in 4,218 deals.

GTCO (25.5 million units), Dangote Cement (24.5 million units), and FBN Holdings (23.1 million units) led by volume while Dangote Cement (N6.5 billion), GTCO (N649.4 million), and FBN Holdings (N277.2 million) led by value

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Performance was bullish as 4 indices gained, 1 lost while the Industrial Goods index closed flat. Leading the advancers, the AFR-ICT index surged 5.0 per cent as investors cherry-picked Airtel Africa (+10 per cent). 

Similarly, the Oil & Gas and Insurance indices rose 2.2 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively following price upticks in Seplat (+4.4 per cent), Cornerstone (+6 per cent) and Mansard (+1.7 per cent), while Zenith Bank (+0.4 per cent) and Access Bank (+0.5 per cent) drove a 0.5 per cent increase in the Banking index. 

On the other hand, the Consumer Goods index shed 2bps due to sell-offs in Champion Breweries (-1.2 per cent) and Honeywell (-0.6 per cent). 

Investor sentiment softened to 17 stocks depreciated in value while 16 others appreciated. Airtel Africa (+10per cent), Cornerstone (+6 per cent), and Courtville (+5.3 per cent) led gainers while FTNCOCOA (-7.7 per cent), Chip Plc (-7.2 per cent), and Regal Insury (-6.7 per cent) led decliners. 

Reacting to the performance of the market, analysts at Afrinvest, said, “In tomorrow’s trading session, we expect the positive sentiment to linger”.