DANGCEM, GTCO, ZENITH and WAPCO lift stock market to 0.33% gain on Thursday

• The Nigerian stock market sustained its bullish momentum, as the NGX All Share Index (ASI) rose by 0.33%, to close at 146,203.40 points. Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return increased to 42.05% from the 41.58% in the previous session, while the market capitalisation expanded by N307.98bn, settling at N92.80trn.
• The positive performance was driven by buying interest in select industrial goods and banking names, notably, DANGCEM (+1.89%), GTCO (+1.06%), ZENITHBANK (+0.29%), and WAPCO (+0.70%), which outweighed profit-taking in UBA (-0.35%), ACCESSCORP (-0.76%) and FIDELITYBK (-2.38%).
• Sectoral performance was largely positive, led by gains in the Industrial Goods Index (+0.67%) led the rank, followed by the Insurance (+0.64%), the Consumer Goods (+0.43%), and the Banking (+0.26%) indices. Meanwhile, the Oil & Gas Index (+0.00%) closed flat.
• Market activity was mixed, as transaction volume declined by 34.00%, while the total value traded rose sharply by 101.47%. FIDELITYBK (-2.38%) led the volume chart with 42.01mn units, while DANGCEM (+1.89%) led the value of trades worth N11.00bn.
• Market breadth closed positive at 1.52x, indicating more gainers than decliners. CAVERTON (+10.00%) led the thirty-one (31) gainers, while FTNCOCOA (-6.67%) led the twenty-one (21) laggards, with remaining stocks closing flat.  

NASD Summary

• In the NASD market today, the NASD OTC Securities Index (NSI) and market capitalisation rose by 0.41%, closing at 3,470.28 points and N2.08trn, respectively.
• Market activity was mixed, as transaction volume increased by 19.65% while value of trades declined marginally by 6.58%.
• SDFCWAMCO (+7.99%) topped the market gainers, while SDIGIPLC (-10.64%) led the decliners in today’s session.