Equity market opens May with N303bn for investors

The first trading day in May 2024 bucked the bearish trend as investors gained about N303bn at the close of trading on Thursday.

This marked the second consecutive day of positive trading on the local bourse. The benchmark index appreciated by 0.55 per cent to 98,762.78 points on Thursday, buoyed by strong sentiments following the recent earnings releases and corporate action announcements.

Meanwhile, investors have continued their strong demand for stocks with strong fundamentals in the market, thus taking advantage of the bearish run in the market to take positions.

Similarly, the market capitalisation of listed equities advanced on Thursday by 0.55 per cent to N55.86tn, thus driving the year-to-date return of the index up to 32.08 per cent.

At the close of trading, the exchange recorded more winners (29) than the losers (14). The gainers were led by Flourmill and Presco Plc which gained 10 per cent each to close at N33.55 and N229.90 each. Sterling Financial Holding Company also made it onto the list of top three gainers as its share value increased by 9.98 per cent to N4.74.

On the loser chart were NASCON Allied Industries, UPL and Omatek whose shares dipped by 9.99 per cent, 9.29 per cent and 9.21 per cent.

The level of market activity was in the mix as the total traded volume rose by 20.46 per cent to 665.2 million units while the total traded value tanked by 62.9 per cent to N5.54bn, and the total number of deals dipped by 9.7 per to 8,446 trades.

Across sectors, the performance remained bullish as investor sentiments improved notably in the Banking, and Oil & Gas indexes, which recorded an uptick of 3.20 per cent, and 0.95 per cent respectively, as investors pick interest in key stocks like FBN Holdings, Access Holdings, Wema Bank, Conoil Plc and JapaulGold.

Also, the Consumer Goods, Industrial Goods and Industrial Goods indexes closed northward by 0.67 per cent, 0.58 per cent and 0.01 per cent as investors interest stayed positive in stocks such as Dangote Sugar, WAPIC, CAP Plc, Livestock and Julius Berger.

Closing out the session, Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc emerged as the most traded security by volume with 362.82 million units traded in 16 trades while AccessCorp was the most traded by value worth N954.62m.