GTBank, FBNH, GUINNESS, and 21 other stocks spurred the Nigerian equity market to its seventh consecutive trading day rally on Wednesday.
The All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 38.37 absolute points, representing a.15 per cent rise to close at 25,330.10 points, while investors gained ₦20.0billion as market capitalisation advanced to ₦13.2trillion, moderating the year to date loss to -5.6 per cent.
While volume traded dipped 28.1 per cent to 180.7million units, value traded was up 16.0 per cent to ₦1.4billion.
The top traded stocks by volume were FIDELITY (26.6m units), UBA (19.5m units) and ACCESS (19.0m units) while NESTLE (₦198.1m), ZENITH (₦172.8m) and GUARANTY (₦159.5m) led by value.
The top gainers were FTNCOCOA (+10.0 per cent), NNFM (+9.8 per cent) and UPL (+9.6 per cent), while CORNERSTONE (-9.7 per cent), AFRIPRUD (-6.7 per cent) and WAPIC (-2.9 per cent) lost the most.
Analysts at Afrinvest expected that following a six-day consecutive uptrend, there would be some profit-taking in subsequent trading days.
The Consumer Goods sector was the lone gainer, up 0.16 per cent due to buying interest in PZ (+5.0 per cent), CHAMPION (+7.1 per cent) and GUINNESS (+1.3 per cent).
However, the Insurance and Banking sectors shed 0.92 per cent and 0.03 per cent respectively, driven by price depreciation in UBA (-1.5 per cent), CORNERSTONE (-9.7 per cent) and CUSTODIAN (-2.0 per cent).
The Oil & Gas, Industrial Goods and AFR-ICT indices closed flat.