Equity market bounces back with N144bn gain

The Nigerian equity market rebounded from Tuesday’s losses, posting a significant gain of N144 billion on Thursday, driven by the strong performance of Nigerian Breweries, Unity Bank, NEM Insurance, and 27 other stocks.

Following the Democracy Day holiday on Wednesday, the market reopened on Thursday and ended the trading day with a 0.2% increase in both market capitalisation and the All Share Index, closing at N56.47 trillion and 99,832.25 points, respectively.

The trading activity slowed down, with a significant decline in both the volume and value of shares exchanged, dropping by 40.80% to 502.60 million units and 47.72% to N8.65 billion, respectively, indicating a notable decrease in market activity.

However, there was a 20 per cent increase in deals to 9,686 from 99630.51.

A total of 502.6 million shares in 9,686 deals were traded with a market value of N8.65bn at the close of the trading session.

Bullish activity dominated the day’s trade with the exchange recording 30 gainers and 18 losers.

The gainers’ chart was led by Nigerian Breweries with a 10 per cent appreciation to N31.90, Unity Bank rose by 9.91 per cent to close at N1.22 and NEM Insurance gained 9.77 per cent to close trading at N9.55.

The top losers were Ecobank Transnational, which lost 9.92 per cent to close at N21.35, Daar Communications shed 8.77 per cent to close at N0.52 and C&I Leasing lost 7.14 per cent to N2.60.

In terms of trading volume, Zenith Bank led the pack with 71.2 million shares traded, followed closely by AIICO Insurance with 67.3 million shares, and Access Holdings with 58.5 million shares.

Other several sectoral indices recorded gains, including the insurance index, banking index, pension index, and consumer goods index.

The Nigerian stock market experienced a loss of N92.32 billion on Tuesday, driven by declines in the shares of National Salt Company, Thomas Wyatt Nigeria, May Baker Nigeria, and 16 other companies.