Stories by Chninenye Anuforo

Equities trading on the nation stock market opened the week slightly positive as rally in the Consumer Goods Sector (Breweries) drove the index to a close at 26,231.37 points, gaining by 3 basis points.

Although sustained sell-down pressure on Nestle affected the market negatively renewed investor interest in Nigerian Breweries, Guinness and Oando buoyed performance as market capitalisation added N2.7 billion to close at N9.0 trillion.

Similarly, activity level strengthened as volume and value traded improved 12.5 per cent and 27.5 per cent to 228.6 million units and N2.6 billion respectively.Performance across sectors was mixed as the Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices gained 14 basis points and 4 basis points on the back of bargain hunting in Oando, Total, Nigerian Breweries and Guinness while the Industrial Goods index marginally added 1 basis point.

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On the flip side, the Banking index lost by 3 basis points consequent on profit taking in Tier-1 stocks – GTBank and Zenith Bank which offset gains in Access and Diamond, while the Insurance index closed flat.After the trading session, 19 stocks appeared on the price movement table as gainers against 15 that declined.

On top the gainers table were; UAC-PROP, Cutix and Oando while May&Baker, Honeywell Flour, and Livestock declined the most.

Analyst Afrinvest Limited said, “Despite the modest benchmark index gain, we note the rally currently ongoing in small- to mid-cap stocks which continues to defy the weak macroeconomic sentiment. We expect that segment of the market to continue to outperform whilst still conservative on aggregate market performance.”