Why Nigerian equities market continues bullish trend

FELIX OLOYEDE

Decline in medium and large stocks dragged the Nigerian equities market down for the third day in a row on Wednesday.

The All share Index declined 0.77 per cent to 43,538.16 points on the back of -5 per cent loss by Mobil to close at N199.50 and Julius Berger, which shed -4.58 per cent and Stanbic IBTC bank -3.51 per cent to end Wednesday trading at N26.05 and N45.35 respectively.

Dangote Cement lost -N6.00 to berth at N264.00 and Nigerian Breweries was down by -N2.90 to close at N142.00 to be part of the 18 losers who pulled the bourse down.

Markets across the global have been on the bullish mood this week.

The gains recorded by 40 companies were unable to prevent the market capitalization from losing N121.70 billion representing 0.77 per cent to N15.62 trillion.

The Nigerian capital market which is one of the best performing market in the world in 2018, reached the N16 trillion territory on Friday last week, before profit-taking caused it to move southward.

Uniliver added N2.25 to close at 47.6, Zenith Bank N0.80 to N32 and Carverton N0.27 to N3.05 to lead the gainers table.

Investors exchanged 508,299,085 stocks worth N4.57 billion in 6,155 deals as Lasaco sold 57,188,965 of its stocks valued at N20.06 million to emerge the most active share.

Banks were largely responsible for driving market volume as FBN Holdings traded 877,903 shares valued at N707.3 million, Skye Bank 43,060,215 shares (N48.29 million) and Access Bank 31,383,609 (N396 million) were part of the five most active stocks.