BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
Closing the holiday shortened week, the domestic bourse ended the session on a positive note, bringing the All-Share index up by 0.40% to close at 47,558.45 points, the highest point since 17 September 2008. Gains in industrial heavyweight, DANGCEM (+2.38%) alongside GTCO (+0.41%), NB (+2.74%) and WAPCO (+0.43%) cemented the market’s strong performance. Consequently, having gained in all four (4) trading sessions this week, the ASI closed 2.00% higher w/w, its first week of gain since the week ended 11 March 2022, ending four successive weeks of losses.
Over the course of the week, the rally in index heavyweights, MTNN (+3.40% w/w), DANGCEM (+2.38% w/w) and most Tier-1 banks, ZENITHBANK (+8.70% w/w), GTCO (+6.52% w/w), UBA (+4.46% w/w) and ACCESSCORP (+4.59% w/w) drove the market’s strong performance. Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 11.34%, while the market capitalization gained N499.75bn w/w to close at N25.64trn.
Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions declining by 59.58%. A total of 385.18m shares valued at N4.02bn were exchanged in 6,212 deals. FIDELITYBK (+2.67%) led the volume chart with 74.82m units traded, while ZENITHBANK (-0.40%) led the value chart in deals worth N778.00m.
Market breadth closed positive at a 1.31-to-1 ratio with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones. SFSREIT (+10.00%) topped twenty (20) others on the gainer’s log, while DANGSUGAR (-5.09%) led fifteen (15) others on the laggard’s table.
