As of the midweek, trading at the Nigerian Exchange was on the upward swing, gaining more than N252 billion amid heavy demand for telecom stocks. Investors witnessed a jaw-dropping gain on MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa shares following the announcement of mobile banking service licenses obtained by the telecom giants.
The improvements fuel demand for shares as MTN Nigeria indicates a plan to issue a public offer in 2021. Consequently, the Nigerian Exchange All-Share Index (NGX-ASI) gained over 1% to sustain the previous day’s bullish trend.
Confirming the trend, analysts Atlass Portfolios Limited said in a market report that the positive sentiment seen today was driven by the continued buy-interest in tech stocks as well as medium capitalised stocks.
Resultantly, the market index (All-Share Index) rose by 483.68 basis points representing a growth of 1.12 per cent to close at 43,730.55 points, heading near the 44,000 index mark, according to stockbrokers.
Data from the Nigerian Exchange shows that stock market capitalisation gained ₦252.41 billion to close at ₦22.82 trillion on Tuesday.
But the market activities traded bearishly, as the total volume and value traded dipped by 36.72 per cent and 31.14 per cent, respectively. A total of 280.71 million units valued at ₦3.48 billion were transacted in 4,342 deals.
Today, SterlnBank topped the traded stocks in terms of volume, accounting for 29.68 per cent of the total volume of trades, followed by UACN (12.19%), ZenithBank (6.23%), UCAP (6.22%), and AccessBank (5.44%) to complete the top five on the volume chart.
Being the bullish trend core driver, MTNN appeared as the most traded stock in value terms, with 30.98 per cent of the total value of trades on the exchange.
ABCTrans and FTNCOCOA topped the gainers’ chart as their share prices rose by 10.00 per cent each, trailed by UACN (7.14%), AFRIPRUD (4.96%), NGXGROUP (4.63%), MTNN (3.90%).
Other gainers were WAPCO (3.46%), UACP (2.62%), AirTel Africa (2.56%), DangSugar (2.40%), Flour Mill (1.40%), Access (0.53%) and 12 others.
Conversely, only 16 stocks declined in price led by Berger with price depreciation of 9.52 per cent to close at ₦8.55, as Caverton (-9.09%), ConOil (-5.65%), NASCON (-4.44%), WEMABank (-3.37%), GTCO (-1.07%), TransCorp (-0.97%) and Zenith Bank (-0.41%) also dipped in price.
However, the market breadth closed positive, recording 24 gainers and 16 losers.
Nevertheless, analysts at Atlass Portfolios Limited said nearly all of the major market sectors rose as against the previous day, led by Consumer Goods (0.21%), Industrial Goods (0.21%), Oil & Gas (0.12%) and Banking (0.12%), except for the Insurance which declined by 0.28%.
