‘Bullish or bearish?’ Nigerian stocks rise by N106 billion, boosted by bank shares

Nigerian stocks rose by 0.43 per cent on Friday after slipping into the negative territory at the previous session as FBN Holdings and some other bank equities led the recovery.

Stocks also found resilience in the strong earnings performance of a number of 2021 company results that were released on Friday, among which was that of TotalEnergies, whose profit rocketed by over 700 per cent for the period in question.

Whether the market will remain bullish or bearish in the near time could be dominantly determined by more corporate scorecards that will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

Market breadth, which measures investors’ sentiment, closed on a positive note, with 39 gainers reported against 7 losers.

The all-share index jumped by 195.82 basis points to 46,205.05, while market capitalisation closed climbed to N24.9 trillion.

Year to date, the index is up by 8.17 per cent.

Cornerstone led gainers, appreciating by 10 per cent to close at N0.55. Vitafoam went up by 9.91 per cent to N24.40. ETI rose to N13.10, notching up 9.62 per cent in the process. Academy added 9.30 per cent to end trade at N0.94. NEM climbed by 9.06 per cent to N3.49.

UPL was the worst performing stock, declining by 9.86 per cent to close at N2.65. Consolidated Hallmark shed 7.69 per cent to close at N0.60. Cutix fell to N2.40, losing 4 per cent. Linkage Assurance declined to N0.51, recording 1.92 per cent depreciation. Eterna closed at N6.01, going down by 1.48 per cent.

Altogether, 313.4 million shares estimated at N5 billion were traded in 5,067 deals.

FBN Holdings was the most active stock with 40.6 million units of its shares worth N468.7 million traded in 217 deals. Transcorp traded 30.9 million shares priced at N34.1 million in 160 transactions. Zenith had 26.7 million shares valued at N688.1 million traded in 348 deals. GTCO traded 20.9 million shares estimated at N536.5 million in 268 transactions. Access Bank traded 19 million shares valued at N188.1 million in 217 deals.

Rtn. Victor Ojelabi

Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.