Nigeria Content Online

Positive sentiments
returned to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday after the
market had recorded losses in the last five trading days.

The Exchange market
capitalisation of the 201 First-Tier equities closed higher yesterday
at N8.607 trillion after opening the day at N8.541 trillion, reflecting
0.77 per cent increase or N66 billion gains. Meanwhile, the market had
lost over N343 billion in the last five trading days.

All the sectoral
indices closed positive on Wednesday as the NSE-30, which measures the
performance of blue chips in the market, gained by 0.88 per cent; the
NSE Banking gained the highest points at 1.84 per cent; Oil & Gas
went up by 1.13 per cent; Insurance up by 0.16 per cent, while the NSE
Food & Beverages retraced by 0.11 per cent.

Commenting on
Wednesday’s trading, analysts at Proshare Nigeria, an investment
advisory company, said the nation’s capital market witnessed “trend
reversal on the back of renewed bargain tendency, adding that “the key
benchmark indices climbed up, taking support from moderate buying
witnessed across the sectors.”

“The impressive
activities witnessed in the banking sector with rescued banks taking
the lead coupled with buying in Food & Beverages, Insurance,
Petroleum, and Marketing sectors impacted the positive outlook
recorded,” they said.

Bola Oke, a finance
analyst at WealthZone Company, a fund management firm, said the market
may remain positive throughout this week because “investors have
returned to the market to take advantage of some defective (blue chips)
stocks that their prices are low.”

Higher gainers

At the close of
trading on Wednesday, the number of gainers closed higher at 39 stocks
compared with the 16 gainers recorded on Tuesday, while losers closed
lower at 23 stocks as against the 39 loserWs in the previous trading
day.

Diamond, Fidelity,
and Spring topped the price gainers’ table with an increase of five per
cent each, while two other banking stocks, Access and UBA, followed in
the chart with an increase of 4.95 and 4.93 per cent.

On the flip side,
Longman Nigeria, Niger Insurance, and Intercontinental Wapic Insurance
led the price losers’ chart with a decline of 5.00 each, while Polyrod
and Premier Paints followed with a decline of 4.97 and 4.96 per cent.

The Banking subsector

The market
transaction volume on Wednesday was 249.23 million units valued at
N2.23 billion, as against the 242.41 million units valued at N2.15
billion recorded on Tuesday.

The volume recorded
in the subsector was driven by transaction in the shares of Zenith
Bank, UBA, Guaranty Trust Bank, Unity Bank, and First Bank. The total
volume of 137.61 million units valued at N1.76 billion traded in the
shares of the five stocks accounted for 39.01 per cent of the entire
market volume and their value represented 29.69 per cent of the
market’s value.

Meanwhile, the NSE said Capital Bancorp Limited, one of the
suspended stockbroking firms, has met the N70 million minimum capital
base requirements stipulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ten other firms have complied since the sanction two weeks ago.