Business

Local stock market opens week bullish as ASI adds 0.4%

The Nigerian equities market launched into the new week on a bullish note as the All-Share Index surged by 0.40 percent to reach 70,479.62 basis points.

Basically, buy interests in BUA Cement, Seplat Energies and Guaranty Trust Holding Company buoyed the market performance, as the share prices of these large caps appreciated by 4.48 percent, 3.94 percent and 0.43 percent, respectively.

Thus, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns of the All Share Index (ASI) settled at +1.8 percent and +37.5 percent, respectively.

As a result of the bullish trade on Monday, equities investors earned N155.27 billion cumulatively as the market capitalization closed the day at N38.71 trillion.

However, as measured by market breadth, market sentiment was mixed, as 27 tickers gained relative to 28 losers.

On the performance board, ThomasWay and Chams topped the gainers’ list having appreciated in share value by 10.0 percent and 9.9 percent, respectively; while ABC Transport and Cornerstone Insurance recorded the highest losses of the day having dipped in share value by 9.3 percent, respectively.

Sectorial performance was positive, as three of the five sub-sector gauges tracked closed bullish, with the NGX Banking, NGX Oil/Gas and NGX Industrial Goods indices experiencing gains of 0.66 percent, 2.31 percent, and 1.83 percent, respectively, while the NGX Insurance and NGX Consumer Goods sectors recorded losses of 2.19 percent and 0.18 percent.

Meanwhile market activity witnessed a mild slowdown with the traded volume and value decreasing by 4.71 percent and 15.91 percent amounting to 391.01 million units and N7.71 billion in value.

However, total deals for the day soared by 6.23 percent to 6,837 trades. UBA was the most traded security in terms of volume and value with 105.63 million units worth N2.14 billion traded during the Monday session, changing hands in 554 deals.

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