Nigerian equity market capitalization hits 34-months high

The capitalization of the Nigerian equity market crossed crossed the N16 trillion threshold for the first time since February 2018 on Tuesday, as the market reversed the previous day’s loss.

Gains by Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar and WAPIC propelled the bourse to 0.83% appreciation to 30,733.47 points, while market capitalisation advanced to ₦16.1tn and year-to-date return improved to 14.5%.

While the volume of equities that investors traded declined 10.7% to 336.0m units, value traded rose 2.3% to ₦3.9bn.

The most traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (41.1m units), FBNH (40.6m units) and UBA (32.1m units) while ZENITH (₦895.6m), GUARANTY (₦604.9m) and DANGSUGAR (₦336.5m) led by value.

WAPIC (+10.0%), ABCTRANS (+9.7%) and CAP (+9.6%) led as 21 other gainers, while NPFMCRFBK (-8.8%), CUSTODIAN (-7.4%) and AIICO (-4.6%) were top of the 18 laggards.

The Industrial Goods index led the gainers, up 2.9% due to buying interest in DANGCEM (+5.6%) and CAP (+9.6%). Similarly, the Oil & Gas and Insurance indices rose 0.6% and 0.3% respectively following gains in OANDO (+7.0%) and WAPIC (+10.0%). Conversely, the Banking and Consumer Goods indices declined 0.5% and 0.1% respectively as GUARANTY (-1.5%), ZENITH (-0.5%), FLOURMILL (-1.6%) and UNILEVER (-1.4%) lost.