Nigerian equity market reverses downtrend

After three consecutive trading sessions decline, Nigerian equity market recovered on Wednesday following buy interest in Dangote Cement, WAPCO and Nigerian Breweries.

The All-Share Index appreciated 1.7% to 34,818.01 points, while investors gained ₦300.5billion as market capitalisation rose to ₦18.2tn as YTD return improved to 29.7%.

While the volume traded fell by 21.4% to 661.1m units, value traded increased by 37.0% to ₦8.3billion. The TRANSCORP (160.6m units), GUARANTY (70.7m units) and ZENITH (57.3m units) emerging the most traded stocks by volume, while GUARANTY (₦2.6bn), ZENITH (₦1.5bn) and ACCESS (₦491.9m) led by value.

The Consumer Goods, Industrial Goods and Banking indices gained the most, up 3.0%, 2.8% and 2.5% respectively, due to price appreciation in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+7.4%), WAPCO (+9.6%) and ZENITH (+3.1%).

Likewise, buy interest in CHAMS (+8.3%) drove the AFR-ICT index higher by 2bps. Conversely, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices declined 0.4% and 0.2% respectively, driven by sell pressures in  CORNERSTONE (-8.6%) and ARDOVA (-6.3%).

STERLING (+10.0%), LINKASSURE (+10.0%) and WAPCO (+9.5%) led the top gainers while CORNERSTONE (-8.6%), REGALINS (-8.3%) and MBENEFIT (-7.1%) led  the decliners.