Bulls prevail again as investors seek to take profit from bargain hunting opportunities this week

THE EQUI TIES MARKET RESUMES this new week in its sustained bullish run from last week’s trading as investors seek profits taking from bargain hunting opportunities on the floor.

Last week, the All-Share index gained 0.6 per cent week on week to 25,199.84 points, due to buying interest in AIRTELAF (+9.2%), GUARANTY (+2.3%) and MTNN (+0.4%), leading investors’ value to appreciate N82.5 billion as market capitalization rose to N13.1 trillion while year to date return settled at -6.1 per cent.

The activity level in the market improved as average volume and value traded advanced 24.5 per cent and 29.0 per cent to 482.4 million units and N4.5 billion respectively. The most traded stocks by volume were GUARANTY (122 million units), TRANSCORP (113.4 million units) and ACCESS (63.7 million units) while GUARANTY (N3.0 billion), ZENITH (N1.1 billion) and DANGCEM (N562.2 million) led by value.

Performance across sectors was impressive from the previous week as 4 of 6 indices gained. The Oil & Gas and AFR-ICT indices gained 5.9 per cent and 4.7 per cent respectively, following price accretion in SEPLAT (+10.0%), OANDO (+5.5%), MTNN (+0.4%) and AIRTELAF (+9.2%). Similarly, buying interest in CADBURY (+12.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+12.5%), CORNERSTONE (-8.9%) and LASACO (+8.3%) buoyed performance in the Consumer Goods (+2.2%) and Insurance (+1.1%) indices. Conversely, sell pressures in DANGCEM (-4.1%), UNITYBANK (-8.5%) and ETI (-4.7%) compelled a 2.7 per cent and 3 basis points loss in the Industrial Goods and Banking indices respectively.

Meanwhile, investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/ decline ratio) declined to 0.9x from 2.7x last week as 28 stocks gained against the 30 that declined. CADBURY (+12.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+12.5%) and UNILEVER (+11.6%) led the top gainers while CHAMPION (-25.3%), IKEJAHOTEL (-25.0%) and NNFM (-10.0%) led the decliners.