Market opens positive as investors gain N185bn

Price appreciation in Dangote Cement (+5.7percent), Guaranty Trust Bank (+7.6percent) and Wapco (+9.6percent) drove the benchmark index up 146bps to settle at 24,783.61 points.

Consequently, investors gained N185.6bn as market capitalisation advanced to N12.9tn while year-to-date loss moderated to -7.7percent.

• Dangote Cement posts N162.9bn profit in 6 months
• FG suspends increase in license fees

Activity level was mixed as volume declined by 2.4percent to 170.0m units while value traded increased marginally by 3bps to N2.4bn.

The top traded stocks by volume were FBNH (42.7m units), Custodian (20.7m units) and Zenith (17.9m units) while Dangote Cement  (N430.5m), MTNN (N374.9m) and Zenith (N278.9m) led by value.

Performance across sectors was mixed as 3 of 6 indices under review declined, 2 gained while the AFR-ICT index closed flat.

The Banking and Industrial Goods indices closed bullish, up 3.7percent and 3.3percent respectively due to buying interest in GTbank (+7.6percent), Zenith (+2.6percent), Dangote Cement (+5.7percent) and WAPCO (+9.6percent).

Conversely, the Oil & Gas index lost the most, shedding 5.7percent owing to sell-pressures in  SEPLAT (-10.0percent) and OANDO (-8.5percent).

Similarly, losses in Mansard (-10.0percent), Linkage Assurance (-2.4percent), PZ (-9.0percent) and Cadbury (-7.6percent) saw the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices decline by 1.8percent and 0.3percent respectively.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth declined to 0.8x from 1.3x recorded in the previous session as 15 stocks advanced against the 19 decliners.

The top gainers were Unity (+9.6percent), Wapco (+9.6percent) and GTbank (+7.6percent) while Mansard (-10.0percent), UAC-PROP (-10.0percent) and SEPLAT (-10.0percent) lost the most. We expect bargain hunting in attractive stocks and earnings releases to dictate market performance this week.

On corporate reports, Julius Berger Nig. Plc filed its unaudited Q2:2020 Result which saw revenue fell 33.0percent y/y to N46.1bn from N68.9bn in Q2:2019 while the company recorded  loss after tax of N2.3bn from a profit of N2.3bn in Q2:2019.