The market maintained previous session's uptrend as the benchmark index rose 1.0% to settle at 39,512.31 points on Wednesday following price upticks in BUACEMENT (+10.0%), INTBREW (+10.0%) and FBNH (+1.4%). Accordingly, the YTD return improved to 47.2% and market capitalisation advanced ₦213.4bn to settle at ₦20.7tn. Activity level was mixed as volume traded declined 48.4% to 372.9m units while value traded rose 162.6% to ₦11.5bn. The most traded stocks by volume were UBA (60.6m units), DANGCEM (33.2m units) and ZENITH (27.5m units) while DANGCEM (₦8.0bn), ZENITH (₦690.9m) and UBA (₦524.7m) led by value.
Mixed Sector Performance
Across the sectors under our coverage, 3 indicators gained, 2 lost while the AFR-ICT index remained flat. For the gainers, the Industrial Goods and Insurance indices led the pack, up 3.7% and 3.0% respectively due to buying interest in BUACEMENT (+10.0%), CUTIX (+4.6%), MANSARD (+5.0%) and NEM (+9.4%). Similarly, price appreciation in INTBREW (+10.0%) propped a 0.4% gain in the Consumer Goods index. Conversely, the Banking and Oil & Gas indices dipped 0.7% and 0.4% respectively, driven by sell-offs in UBN (-5.4%), ACCESS (-2.2%) and OANDO (-3.3%).
Investor Sentiment Improves
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.2x from the 0.9x recorded previously as 23 stocks advanced against 19 decliners. INTBREW (+10.0%), BUACEMENT (+10.0%) and ETERNA (+10.0%) were the best performing tickers while FTNCOCOA (-9.9%), DEAPCAP (-7.4%) and HONYFLOUR (-6.8%) led the losers. We expect the positive performance to be sustained in the last trading session of the year.
Afrinvest
