Equities Market Closes End Of Year Positive As Investors Gain N112.4 bn

The Nigerian equities market closed the year end, 2019 on a positive note as investors on Tuesday gained over N112.4 billion in a bullish run.

The bullish performance was buoyed by buying interest in blue chip companies as Seplat Petroleum garnered (+10.0 percent), STANBIC IBTC (+5.1 percent) and WAPCO (+9.3 percent).

Another stock market gauge, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE All-Share Index (ASI) went up by 0.9 percent to close at 26,842.07 points. Consequently, Year to Date YtD return moderated to -14.6 percent while market capitalisation increased by N112.4billion to N13.0 trillion.

Activity level was mixed as volume traded rose 175.2 percent to 1.1billion units while value traded fell by 23.5 percent to N5.5billion. The top traded stocks by volume were Access Bank (47.3million units), UBA (37.4million units) and Zenith Bank (29.8million units) while Dangote Cement (N2.4billion), Zenith bank (N554.0million) and Access Bank (N471.4million) were the top traded stocks by value.

Meanwhile sector performance was broadly positive except Consumer Goods Index which closed negative, down 0.3 percetn, on the back of losses in Nigerian Breweries (-1.3 percent ) and Dangote Sugar (-1.5 percent ).

The Oil & Gas Index led gainers, up 6.7 percent, following buying interest in Seplat (+10.0 percent) and Oando (+8.4 percent). Similarly, the Industrial Goods and Insurance Indices trailed, gaining 2.2 percent and 2.0 percent respectively.

Other equities that gained include: WAPCO (+9.3 percent), Dangote Cement (+0.4 percent), MANSARD Insurance (+10.0 percent) and Prestige Assurance (+7.8 percent).

Also, the Banking Index closed higher by 1.4 percent buoyed by price appreciation in Guaranty Trust Bank (+2.4 percent), Access Bank (+2.6 percent) and Zenith Bank (+0.5 percent). Lastly, the AFR-ICT index closed flat.