By Chinenye Anuforo

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EQUITIES market ended on a positive note last week as investors gained a total of N70.6 billion as market capitalization rose to N8.9 trillion from N8.8 trillion with which it started the week’s business.
The market closed green on the first two days of the week.
However, following the conclusion of the MPC meeting on Tuesday and the perceived uninspir­ing deliberations from the meeting, there was increased sell offs across sectors which drove the broader index southwards on Wednesday.
The market recovered on Thursday and the gains recorded during the week, outweighed the losses hence the Benchmark In­dex appreciated 0.8 per cent Week-To-Date (WTD) to settle at 25, 889.91 points.
Activity level strength­ened as average volume and value traded improved 79.5 per cent and 43 per cent to 387.8 million units and N2.6billion respectively.
Across sectors, the Con­sumer Goods Index was the clear cut leader, surging five per percent WTD majorly due to increased buying ac­tivity in Nigerian Breweries and Unilever. In the same vein, the Banking sector in­dex improved 1.4 per cent following gains in Zenith and UBA.
On the flipside, the Oil & Gas index dipped 3.7 per cent Week-on-Week (WoW) following sell offs in SEPLAT and Mobil.
The Insurance index also lost 1.6 per cent while the industrial goods index fell 0.4 per cent W-o-W.
Investor sentiment in the market remained nega­tive as 21 stocks advanced WTD against 37 declining stocks.
The top performing stocks in the market were Fidelity Bank, Nigerian Breweries and Vita Foam ,while the biggest losers were Afriprud, NASCON and Cadbury.
Analysts with Afrinvest Limited said, “As majority of the Bellwethers in the market have released their results, there is little left to stoke investors’ confidence in the interim, hence we ex­pect market to continue to trade sideways in the ses­sions ahead.”