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The market
capitalisation of equities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), on
Wednesday, hits N8.3 trillion as investors rally banks’ stocks.

Subsequently, it
rose by 3.5 per cent or N281 billion at the close of yesterday’s
trading from Tuesday’s figures of N8.019 trillion. The last time the
Exchange recorded market capitalisation in N8.3 trillion regions was
November 14, 2008.

Adedayo Idowu, an
analyst at Vetiva Capital Management Limited, a financial services
company, said the driver for the Nigerian equity market this year “will
be the banking sector.”

“As banks
consolidate on 2010 earnings and balance sheets recovery, especially
with the lighter non-performing loans burden on the back of the Assets
Management Company’s purchase of eligible toxic assets, we expect
looming attractive scorecards from value lenders to spur investors’
appetite for banking counters with expected positive rub-off on the
overall bourse,” Mr. Idowu said.

Most active

The banking
subsector was the most active Wednesday with 338.672 million quantities
of shares, valued at N3.766 billion, representing 66.4 per cent of the
entire market volume. The subsector’s volume was largely boosted by
shares of Zenith, First Bank, Diamond and Fidelity.

The food/beverages
subsector was second in the chart with 47.913 million shares worth
N865.169 million. Dangote Sugar, Tantalizers, and Dangote Flour boosted
the subsector’s volume.

Trading activities
in the insurance subsector followed, with 46.125 million shares valued
at N52.537 million. Volume in the subsector was driven by shares of
Continental Reinsurance, Niger Insurance, and Custodian and Allied
Insurance.

Higher gainers

The number of
gainers at the close of trading session closed higher on Wednesday at
69 stocks as against the 47 gainers recorded the previous session,
while decliners closed lower at eight stocks compared with the 17
losers recorded on Tuesday.

Dangote Cement led
on the gainers’ chart with an increase of N6 on its opening price of
N120 per share, while Oando and Flour Mills Nigeria followed with a
gain of N3.35 and N3, to close at N70.35 and N73 per share.

Total Nigeria
topped the price losers’ chart, shedding N11 to close at N223 per
share, while African Petroleum and Paints & Coating Manufacturing
followed with a loss of 34 kobo and 16 kobo on their opening prices of
N21.90 and N3.36 per share.

All the NSE
sectoral indexes maintained previous positive outlook on Wednesday as
NSE-30, which measures the performance of blue chips in the market,
gained by 5.21 per cent; the NSE Banking gained the highest point by
7.92 per cent; the Insurance moved up by 2.84 per cent; the
Food/Beverages appreciated by 2.77 per cent; while the NSE Oil/Gas
closed with lowest score to gain by 1.42 per cent.