Flour Mills, Others Push Stock Market Higher
The nation’s stock market on Monday witnessed a rebound as investors gained N7bn on the back of price appreciation recorded in Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, Unity Bank Plc and 15 other stocks.
The market, which recorded losses totalling N304bn last week, saw its capitalisation increase to N12.909tn from N12.902tn on Friday.
The All Share Index rose by 0.07 per cent to 29,292.66 basis points, while the year-to-date loss eased to -6.8 per cent.
Volume traded declined by 27.5 per cent to 216.289 million units while value traded advanced by 24.1 per cent to N2.270bn.
The top traded stocks by volume were Wapic Insurance Plc (84.9 million units), FBN Holdings Plc (16.2 million units) and Zenith Bank Plc (14.7 million units) while MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (N1.1bn), Zenith Bank Plc (N282.3m) and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (N275.9m) were the top traded stocks by value.
Analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited said, “Notwithstanding market performance today (Monday), we maintain a bearish outlook on the equities market.
“However, we expect the Airtel Africa listing in the local bourse to drive activity level later in the week.”
The top gainers were Flour Mills, Unity Bank, Red Star Express Plc, Wema Bank Plc and Wapic Insurance, with respective gains of 10 per cent, 9.68 per cent, 9.09 per cent, 8.20 per cent and 7.50 per cent.
However, Forte Oil Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Nigeria Plc, Total Nigeria Plc, Sovereign Insurance Plc and First City Monument Bank Plc led nine other losers at the Exchange.
Meanwhile, the performance in the Treasury-bills secondary market last week was bullish for the fourth consecutive week, following sustained robust system liquidity, which was fuelled by the inflow of Federation Account Allocation Committee allocation, as well as unfilled bids from the primary market and Open Market Operation auctions conducted during the week.
The Central Bank of Nigeria announced three OMO auctions last week, offering a total of N800bn.
On Monday last week, N400bn was offered across the short (N50bn offer vs. N4.1bn subscription), medium (N150bn offer vs. N43.1bn subscription) and long-term (N200bn offer vs. N352.8bn subscription) maturities.
Tuesday’s auction resulted in a no-sale, while Thursday’s offer of N300bn was oversubscribed by N886.7bn, showing a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.0x.
In addition to the current system liquidity (N840bn long as of Friday), an inflow from OMO maturities worth N105.2bn is expected to bolster system liquidity this week.
Analysts said they expected to see sustenance in the bullish run, stemming from strong system liquidity, as well as sustained OMO auction by the CBN.
