After two successive negative trading sessions, Nigerian equities regained their rally yesterday as renewed bargain-hunting nudged several stocks to their highest prices in more than a year. With 36 gainers to 22 losers, benchmark indices at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) showed a day-on-day gain of 1.4 per cent or N157 billion.
Aggregate market value of all quoted equities at the Exchange rose from its opening value of N11.461 trillion to close yesterday at N11.618 trillion, representing net capital gain of N157 billion. The All Share Index (ASI)-the main value-based index, also rose correspondingly from 33,141.85 points to close at 33,598.20 points. Average year-to-date return rallied to 25 per cent.
All sectoral indices also closed on the upside as investors scrambled for bargain deals across the sectors. The NSE Banking Index rose by 2.9 per cent. The NSE Insurance Index followed with a gain of 1.5 per cent. The NSE Oil & Gas Index appreciated by 1.3 per cent. The NSE Consumer Goods Index rallied by 1.0 per cent while the NSE Industrial Goods Index rose by 0.8 per cent.
Several stocks hit one-year high on Wednesday including Zenith Bank, which rose to N21.89; Stanbic IBTC Holdings, N31.01; Fidson Healthcare, N3; May & Baker Nigeria, N3.78; CAP, N37.80; Med-View Airline, N1.57; Okomu Oil Palm, N66.84 and Presco, which rose to a high of N68.89 per share.
Seplat Petroleum Development Company led the gainers with a gain of N5.50 to close at N465.51. Unilever Nigeria followed with a gain of N3.70 to close at N40.70. Okomu Oil Palm rose by N3.18 to close at N66.84. Nigerian Breweries added N2.90 to close at N160 while Presco gathered N2.74 to close at N68.89 per share.
The momentum of activities also increased considerably as turnover rose by 85 per cent with the exchange of 759 million shares worth N6.3 billion. FBN Holdings was the most active stock with a turnover of 106.36 million shares valued at N727.10 million. Transnational Corporation of Nigeria followed with 99.79 million shares worth N186.99 million while Lasaco Assurance placed third with 99.75 million shares worth N49.88 million.
On the negative side, Seven-Up Bottling Company led the losers with a loss of N4.20 to close at N90.30. Forte Oil dropped by N2 to close at N56. International Breweries lost N1.44 to close at N28.56. PZ Cussons Nigeria dropped by 92 kobo to N22.08 while UAC of Nigeria declined by 38 kobo to close at N17.62.
Most analysts expected the market to continue on the uptrend as investors await second quarter earnings of quoted companies.