The equities market on the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX opened the week positively on Monday as investors gained over N534 billion.
The NGX- All Share Index, ASI, another stock market indicator, advanced 1.6% to 61,949.24 points following buying interest in MTN Nigeria which went up by 1.7%, Stanbic IBTC 9.3% and Access Corporation 9.9%.
Activity level was mixed as volume of transactions rose 20.8% to 1.2 billion units and value traded dipped 12.0% to N14.1billion.
On sectoral analysis, performance across sectors within our purview was positive as all 6 indices gained. Leading the pack, the Banking and Insurance indices advanced 6.8% and 1.8% respectively following price appreciation in Zenith Bank which rose by 2.9%, Fidelity Bank 10.0%, and MANSARD 4.6%. Trailing, the Oil & Gas and AFR-ICT Indices inched higher by 1.5% and 0.9% respectively due to price uptick in Conoil which went up by 6.0%, Eterna 10.0%, and MTN Nigeria 1.7%. Also, buying interest in Dangote Sugar led to increase in its price by 3.0% followed by Unilever 7.4% and PZ 4.6% that pushed the Consumer and Industrial Goods Indices up by 0.5% and 4 bases points, bps respectively.
On outlook, analysts at Afrinvest Research stated: “ Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth, improved to 1.29 times from 0.78 times in the prior session as 67 stocks advanced, 14 declined while 41 closed flat. We anticipate sustained buying activity in today’s (Tuesday) trading session buoyed by improved investor sentiment.”