Post-election trading: activity in high cap stocks pushes index up

As investors await the results of the 2019 Presidential elections, strong rally in the equities of highly capitalised stocks drove the domestic bourse into a high momentum mode on Monday.

Nigerian Breweries which appreciated 4 percent, Zenith Bank’s growth of 1 percent and Dangote Cement’s 0.1 percent increase drove the All Share Index (ASI) 0.57 percent higher to 32,700.12 points.

Year to date gains consequently inched northwards to 4.0 percent while market capitalisation improved slightly by N68.8 billion to settle at N12.2 trillion.

Activity level was however mixed as volume traded decreased 0.4 percent to 219.7m units while value traded increased 147.7 percent to N5.5 billion.

Nigerian Breweries, Diamond Bank and Access Bank emerged the top traded stocks by volume as investors exchanged 42.7m units, 30.8m units and 20.7m units of their stocks respectively. Leading top traded by value were Nigerian Breweries N3.6bn, Guaranty Trust Bank N733.9m and Zenith Bank N337.0m

All five major sector indices closed in the positive territory with the Consumer Goods index leading by an appreciation of 1.3 percent on the back of buying interests in Nigerian Breweries (+4.0%) and Dangote Flour (+10.0%).

The Insurance and Banking indices trailed appreciating 1.1 percent and 0.8 percent due to gains in NEM Insurance (+3.4%), Sovereign Insurance (+8.7%), Zenith Bank (+1.0%) and UBA (+2.5%).

In the same vein, the Oil & Gas index advanced 0.1 percent as Mobil (+1.1%) and Oando (+1.5%) closed in the green.

Lastly, the Industrial Goods index closed flat with a bullish bias as investors took advantage of bargain opportunities in Dangote Cement (+0.1%) towards the end of Monday’s session.

Market breadth closed higher than Friday’s as 25 stocks advanced against 8 decliners. The top performers today were Dangote Flour (+10.0%), ABC Transport (+9.6%) and Veritas Kapital (+9.5%) while UNIONDAC (-6.5%), Total (-2.6%) and Cutix (-1.6%) led laggards.

Outlook for the coming sessions remain cautious as equities market analysts at Afrinvest maintain that market direction this week will be largely determined by the outcome of the election.