Nigerian equity market extends gain by 1.1%

The Nigerian equity market sustained the previous day’s gain, appreciating 1.1 per cent on Tuesday, driven by investors’ keen interest in Dangote Cement, GTBank and Zenith Bank.

Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) added 1.09 per cent to close at 24,202.87 points, while market capitalization gained ₦100.4 billion to ₦12.6 trillion, as the bourse’s year to date loss moderated to -9.8 per cent.

Investor exchanged 339.8 million equities worth ₦3.9 billion in 4,784 with the volume and value traded increasing 2.7 per cent and 33.9 per cent respectively.

Access Bank (80.6m units), GTBank (41.9m units), and Zenith Bank (39.7m units) were the most active in volume terms,  while GTBank (₦972.0m), Zenith Bank (₦628.9m) and Dangote Cement (₦579.6m) led the value chart.

CAVERTON gained 10 per cent to emerge as the top gainer, while LASACO shed 8 per cent to top seven other others.

Gains by GTBank (1.1 per cent), Zenith Bank (2.3 per cent) and Dangote Cement (2.8 per cent) lifted the Banking and Industrial Goods indices higher by 2.1 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively. Also, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices rose 0.4 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively due to price appreciation in AIICO (5.6 per cent), CORNERSTONE (1.8 per cent) and OANDO (2.2 per cent). However, the Consumer Goods index was the lone loser, down 1.7 per cent due to sell pressure in International Breweries (-3.0 per cent). The AFR-ICT index, on the other hand, closed flat.