Business
Bargain Hunting pushes Nigerian equity market up
By FELIX OLOYEDE
The Nigerian equity market rebound on Tuesday underpinned on bargain hunting on Airtel Africa, Bua cement and Zenith Bank.
The All-share Index was up by 0.30 per cent to close at 24,097.48 points, while market capitalisation advanced ₦37.3 billion to berth at ₦12.6 trillion as the bourse performance for this improved to -10.2 per cent.
The top gainers were REDSTAREX (+9.8 per cent), WAPIC (+6.1 per cent) and C&I Leasing (+5.3 per cent) while Okomu Oil (-9.9 per cent), MRS (-9.8 per cent) and Unilever (-9.8 per cent) were the top decliners.
The volume and value of equities investors traded declined by 18.0 per cent and 7.1 per cent to 155.5million units and ₦2.6bn respectively.
The most active stocks by volume were GTBank (19.7m units), Access Bank (13.0m units) and MTNN (10.2m units), while MTNN (₦1.2bn), GTBank (₦413.8m) and Zenith Bank (₦129.8m) led by value.
The AFR-ICT was the top advancer, having gained 1.1 per cent to top gainers on the back of price appreciation in Airtel Africa (+3.7 per cent).
The Banking and Industrial Good indices also gained advanced 0.9 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively following bargain hunting in Zenith Bank (+1.9 per cent), UBA (+2.5per cent) and Bua Cement (+2.5 per cent).
On the other hand, the Insurance index dipped by 1.9 per cent to top the laggards due to profit taking in Custodian (-9.1 per cent) and Mansard (-9.7 per cent).
Also, the Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices lost 0.5 per cent and 0.02 per cent respectively due to sell-offs in Unilever (-9.8 per cent), NASCON (-5.0 percent) and MRS (-9.8 percent).
