Chinwendu Obienyi
Positive earnings report largely neutralised the tense political landscape as renewed appetite in the shares of Nigerian Breweries, Zenith Bank and GT Bank by investors trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) pushed market capitalisation up by N158 billion in two consecutive trading sessions.
The market had closed in the red as at February 18, 2019 as investors reacted to the postponed elections at the weekend but rebounded 0.2 per cent on Tuesday. At the sound of the closing gong yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) climbed northward by 0.64 per cent to close at 32,614.05 points while market capitalisation, which opened at N12.085 trillion, rose by N77 billion to settle at N12.162 trillion.
Set against the foregoing, the Year-to-Date (YtD) gain notched higher by 3.8 per cent. Analysts at Afrinvest said, “following two consecutive sessions of positive performance, we do not rule out the possibility of profit taking in subsequent sessions this week.”
Meanwhile activity level also strengthened as volume and value of stocks traded advanced 22.4 and 35.6 per cent to 443.78 million units and N5.64 billion respectively, exchanged in 4,697 deals.
Performance across sectors remained bullish as 4 of 5 indices closed in the green. The Consumer Goods and Insurance indices led gainers up 1.4 and 1.2 per cent respectively following buying interests in Nigerian Breweries (+10.0 per cent) and Prestige (+8.0 per cent).
Similarly, the Oil & Gas index and Banking indices trailed, up 1.0 and 0.8 per cent respectively on the back of gains in Eterna Oil (+5.49 per cent) and Zenith Bank (+1.78 per cent). On the flip side, sell pressures in Dangote Cement (-0.05 per cent) led to a -0.2 per cent decline in the Industrial Goods index.