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Nigerian Stock Exchange Watch: Investor Appetite for Top-Tier Banks Pushes Bourse to New Height

By Afolabi Ogunde on May 2, 2012

Bullish sentiments prevailed in the banking sub-sector as 11 banks recorded appreciation with none recording a loss in the day’s trading. The release of Q1, 2012 results from First Bank and FCMB on the bourse today only helped to strengthen the feeding frenzy as investors fell over themselves to pick up bank stocks, particularly top-tier banks.

The wave of renewed interest comes at a time when local and international analysts have divulged that Nigerian banks are undervalued, despite posting strong earning post-banking crisis.

GTBank (+4.99%) led the sector, recording its highest share price (N 16.82) in 4 years. Also on the upward trajectory, Zenith (+4.94%), First Bank(+4.91%), Access (+4.94%),Sterling (+4.55%), Union (+4.81%) and Skye (4.80%) all closed in excess of 400 basis points.

Also closing up Diamond (+2%), FCMB (+3.83%), Fidelity (+0.75%) and Stanbic (+1.3%).

The Breweries sub-sector saw Guinness (+1.25%) post a price appreciation after declaring a Net Income of N9.1 billion in Q1, 2012. Nigerian Breweries added 105 basis points.

The Food Beverages and Tobacco sub-sector was also predominantly bullish as Cadbury (+4.96%) led in price appreciation. Also in positive territory were Dangote Sugar (+3.99%), Nascon (+1.96%), Flour Mills (+1.73%) and Dangote Flour (+0.70%). No participant in this sector recorded price depreciation today.

The market capitalization of the bourse stands at N 7.1 trillion.

Over 400 million shares valued at N4.87 billion exchanged hands today.

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