Nigerian Stock Exchange Watch: Market Firms up to Investors Delight, ASI up 0.92%

Usually when Dangote Cement (-0.58%) records a loss in the trading session as it did today, the bourse also closes in the negative territory. However today’s session bucked the trend as investor demand for several blue chip stocks across various sectors caused the index to appreciate 0.92%.

The All Share Index (ASI) closed at 21,261.29 even as the market cap approached N 6.75 trillion.

The banking sub-sector was predominantly bullish as top tier banks Access (+5%), First Bank (+4.97%), GTBank (+2.61%), Zenith (+3.08%) and UBA (+1.45%) all recorded healthy gains.

FCMB (+4.93%) was also up in the day’s session, however selling pressure took its toll on Fidelity (-4%), Sterling (-3.25%) and Union (-4.94%).

The consumer goods sector saw the like of Guinness (+3.03%), UAAC (+3.95%), PZ (+2.04%), and Nascon (+3.45%) record healthy gains. Also Dangote Sugar, Dangote Flour and Cadbury traded in the green.

Lafarge (+5%) led the infrastructure sector, and Ashaka (+2.37%), Berger Paints (+4.88%), Paints and Coatings (+3.85%) were also in positive territory at the end of the day’s session. Julius Berger (-4.98%) lost almost all the full points on the flip side.

The Insurance sub-sector recorded a dismal performance as Continental Reinsurance (-4.35%), and GTAssure (-0.81%) shed points even as no other counters recorded a positive performance.

Oando led the Oil and Gas sector with 454 points appreciation, followed closely by Japaul with a gain of 4.35% in the day’s session.

Investors traded over 191 million shares valued at N 1.64 billion in the session today.

The top 5 price gainers in today’s session were:

The top stocks trailing the markets included:

Leading the activity charts were: