Investors on the Nigerian Exchange Limited gained about N402bn at the close of trading on Thursday signaling a rebound from the loss of N139bn incurred in the previous trading session.
The positive trend was driven by bullish sentiments leading to buying pressure in some stocks including MTN Nigeria (+4.58 per cent), Dangote Cement (+2.20 per cent), Zenith Bank (+0.53 per cent) and PZ (+1.35 per cent).
The All-Share Index advanced by 0.99 per cent to 74,502.58 points, also the year-to-date gain of the index settled at 45.37 per cent. Similarly, the market capitalisation also rose by 0.99 per cent to close at N40.769tn. These are record highs for the ASI and market cap on the exchange.
Riding on the bullish trading, the exchange reported more gainers at 37 than losers, which stood at 27. Some of the gainers included equities like Ikeja Hotel, Multiverse, Julius Berger, Industrial & Medical Gases Plc and MCNichols Plc.
Despite the gains recorded by investors, trading activity on the exchange witnessed a significant decline, with total traded volume falling by 11.17 per cent to 384.58 million units. The total traded value also saw a substantial decrease of 56.20 per cent to N5.67b, while the total number of deals declined by 6.35 per cent to 8,336 deals.
Sectoral performance remained positive as the Insurance, Consumer Goods, Oil/Gas and Industrial indexes experienced gains of 2.07 per cent, 0.11 per cent, 0.02 per cent and 1.10 per cent, respectively.
The Banking sector was the only decliner across monitored indexes as it declined by 0.22 per cent.
For the second consecutive days, Jaiz Bank emerged as the most traded security by volume with 49.40 million units across 282 trades, followed by Zenith Bank with 27.94 million units exchanged in 577 deals, Access Holdings Plc saw 23.42 million units of its shares traded in 383 exchanges, VeritasKap had 21.69 million units traded in 71 deals and Transcorp had 19.40 million units of its shares traded in 460 exchanges.
Zenith Bank led in traded value at N1.06bn, followed by MTN Nigeria with N792.51m of its shares traded, AccessCorp followed with N539.24m worth of shares, United Bank for Africa was next with N367.411m shares and Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc was the fifth in terms of traded value at N291.16m.
For this week, analysts had projected a positive trend as investors are expected to engage in profit-taking and bargain-hunting for dividend-paying stocks, driven by sector rotation and portfolio rebalancing.
