Business

Banking rally pushes equities market higher

Equities trading at the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) opened the week and the month of July bullish to extend previous week’s positive sentiments and the benchmark index closed 1.61 per cent higher to settle at 61,949.24 basis points.

Basically, the rally at the local bourse on Monday is attributable to increased demand for MTN Nigeria Communication as well as on some banking stocks.

Bullish proceedings in the market were due to buy interest on Tier-1 banking stocks such as Access Holdings, United Bank for Africa, Guaranty Trust Holding Company and Zenith Bank; their respective share prices climbed by 9.94 per cent, 9.80 per cent, 4.29 per cent, 7.14 per cent, and 2.92 per cent, respectively.

As a result, the year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 20.87 per cent.

Equities investors, therefore, earned N534.01 billion cumulatively as the market capitalization appreciated by 1.61 per cent to settle at N33.73 trillion by the end of the day.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive as 67 tickers gained relative to 14 losers. On the performance board, Japaul Gold and Linkage Assurance recorded the most significant gains of the day having appreciated in share value by 10.0 per cent, respectively, while Tripple G and Cornerstone Assurance topped the losers’ list after the share prices of these companies dipped by 9.9 per cent and 9.1 per cent, respectively.

Analysing by sectors, the Banking, Insurance, Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices recorded gains having appreciated in value by 6.8 per cent, 1.8 per cent, 1.5 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively, while the Industrial Goods index closed flat.

Activities at the local bourse was however tepid as analysis of market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 12.01 per cent.

A total of 1.21 billion shares valued at N14.04 billion were exchanged in 12,128 deals. FCMB Group led the volume chart with 173.81 million units traded while Access Holdings led the value chart in deals worth N2.38 billion.

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