Seplat, Wapco, drive NSE ASI up 0.33%

Transactions on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) kick started the new trading week on a positive note as buying interest in highly capitalized stocks saw the All Share Index (ASI) rising by 0.33 per cent.
The bears had gained footing in the domestic bourse in four trading sessions last week but strong interest in Seplat, Wapco and GT Bank saw the market’s year-to-date (ytd) increasing by 0.8 per cent while index and market capitalisation closed at to 40,573.31 points and N21.225 trillion respectively. This is in contrast to the figure of 40,439.85 points and N21.156 trillion recorded on Friday. This means investors gained about 70 billion at the close of business on Monday. Reacting to the performance of the market, analysts at Afrinvest, said, “we believe bargain hunting would boost the performance of the market this week”.
Further analysis of the performance of the market showed that the volume and value of stocks traded declined by 47.9 per cent and 58.3 per cent respectively to 206.24 million units and N2.16 billion, exchanged in 4,264 deals.
Zenith Bank was the most active stock with the sale of 21.50 million shares valued at N539.62 million. Mutual Benefits sold 15.0 million shares valued at N6.81 million while UAC-Prop traded 14.83 million shares worth N12.07 million.
Performance across sectors was positive as all indices gained save the AFR-ICT index which closed lower by 0.6 per cent on account of sell-offs in MTNN (-1.1 per cent). The Oil & Gas index led the gainers, rising by 5.4 per cent due to a price uptick in Seplat (+10.0 per cent).
Similarly, the Banking and Insurance indices inched higher by 1.8 and 1.4 per cent respectively as a result of gains in Access Bank (+4.3 per cent) and AIICO (+9.3 per cent). The Industrial and Consumer Goods indices also appreciated 35 basis points and 1 basis point respectively as WAPCO (+5.1 per cent) and Champion Breweries(+7.0 per cent) ticked higher.
Meanwhile, 30 stocks gained while 13 others declined.  Seplat (+10.0 per cent), Mutual Benefits (+9.5 per cent) and AIICO (+9.3 per cent) were the top gainers while Conoil (-10.0 per cent), Royal Exchange(-10 per cent) and RT BRISCOE (-9.1 per cent) were the top losers.