Bargain hunting activities on the Nigerian Exchange Limited drove up the market capitalisation by N102bn to close at N28.542tn at the end of trading on Tuesday.

The All-Share Index of the local bourse which had opened on a positive note this week, gained 0.36 per cent or 188.04 base points to close at 52419.33 points at the close of trading.

The year-to-date returns also appreciated to 2.28 per cent from 1.88 per cent recorded last Friday.

Activity level was mixed, with volume traded moderating by 7.91 per cent to 576.85m units, while value traded increased by 21.25 per cent to N6.79bn compared to Monday’s figures of 626.38m and N5.599bn respectively.

The shares of the United Bank for Africa led the volume chart by 94.31m units traded, while Zenith Bank led the value chart with 57.39m units traded in deals worth N1.40bn.

Investors’ sentiment as measured by market breadth improved reflecting in 26 gainers against the 19 decliners.

Performance across the tracked indices was mostly bullish.  Specifically, the insurance and banking indices rose by 3.19 per cent and 1.10 per cent respectively due to buy interests in SOVRENINS (+9.52 per cent) and  GTCO (+4.15 per cent).

In the same vein, the consumer and industrial goods indices gained 0.85 per cent and 0.06 per cent respectively, owing to price appreciation in NB (+9.97 per cent) and WAPCO (+1.01 per cent). On the flip side, the oil & gas index declined by 0.72 per cent due to sell pressures in Ardova (-6.06 per cent).

In its latest investment report, analysts at Leadway Pensure PFA projected that trading in the equities space was likely to be fuelled by interest in fundamentally viable options.

“We envisage further moderation to the index as investors are likely to opt for risk-free assets given the market dynamics,” the analysts said.