Stanbic, others push stocks gain by N199bn

The domestic equities market closed on a positive note as investors gained N199.2 billion, raising market capitalisation to N20.4 trillion.

Buying interest in Stanbic (+10%), MTNN (+2.4%) and Dangote Cement (+2.3%) drove the performance as the All-Share Index (ASI) rose 98 basis points (bps) to 39,085.78 points while the loss this year improved to -2.9%.

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Trading activity waned as volume and value declined 11.8% and 4.7% respectively to 361.9m units and N5.7bn.

Across sectors, performance was bullish as 4 indicators trended northward.

The AFR-ICT index led the gainers, up 1.2% due to price appreciation in MTNN (+2.4%).

Similarly, the Oil & Gas, Industrial Goods and Consumer Goods indices rose 0.7% apiece on account of buying interest in OANDO (+8.7%), Dangote Cement (+2.3%), Guinness (+8.8%), and International Brewery (+2.8%).

However, profit-taking in WAPIC (-9.1%), Mansard (-2.0%), ETI (-2.1%) and Access (-0.6%) dragged the Insurance and Banking indices lower by 0.6% and 0.2% respectively.