Equities market halts southwards trend, as investors gain N5.6bn

Equities trading at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) pulled a positive string, on Tuesday, to halt a five-day losing streak.

The positive trading session was attributed to positive financial results submitted to the bourse as growth in EPS and an eight per cent growth in the proposed dividend by Zenith Bank influenced its shares to closed topnotch.

Basically at the end of the day trading session, the All Share Index (ASI) was marginally up by 0.03 per cent to close at 40,164.86 basis points.

Consequently, the market capitalisation closed at N21.014 trillion as investors earned N5.63 billion.

The bulls were however unable to take control of the market breadth as 16 counters in the gainers’ chart were outweighed by 24 counters in the losers’ chart.

AIICO Insurance, Livestock, Zenith Bank, Cutix and Flour Mills of Nigeria, were the top gainers of the day, while the losers’ chart was topped by SUNU Assurance, Lasaco Insurance, African Prudential, ABC Transport and University Press Limited.

Most sectoral indices closed in tandem with the ASI, save for NSE30 and Banking sectors that gained 0.02 per cent and 1.68 per cent respectively as positive performance in Zenith Bank, United Bank for Africa and Guaranty Trust Bank shaped the performance of the Banking sector.

Market activity as measured by both volume and value of trades improved in todays’ session. Daily traded volume stood at 337 million units, a 16.80 per cent increase from a volume of 289 million units recorded in the previous trading session.

Value of traded stocks also closed in tandem with volume as the value of trades increased by 7.59 per cent to stand at N3.845 billion as against a value of N3.574 billion recorded in the previous trading session.

FBN Holdings continued to top the volume charts as the most traded stock, flanked in today’s session by Zenith Bank, Transnational Corporation, United Capital and United Bank for Africa to complete the list of the five most traded stocks in today’s session in terms of volume.

With regards to the value of trades, Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, FBN Holdings, MTN Nigeria and Dangote Cement made up the top five performers.

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