Equities sustain lifts with N211bn gain

The stock market has sustained its lifts on Tuesday after the investors gained N211 billion and the all-share index advanced 1.3 per cent to settle at 32,647.10 points due to gains in MTNN (+4.1%), Stanbic (+4.4%) and Zenith (+2.3%).

Consequently, market capitalization rose to N17.1 trillion while year to date return improved to 20.6%.

Activity level decreased as volume and value traded declined by 9.0% and 6.1% to 578.8m units and N7.7bn respectively.

The most traded stocks by volume were Zenith (67.9m units), FBNH (64.7m units) and Access (60.2m units) while Zenith (N1.6bn), GTB (N1.2bn) and Dangote Cement (N556.3m) led by value.

All six sectors under review closed positive. The Insurance and AFR-ICT indices led the pack, appreciating 3.3% and 2.3% respectively following gains in Custodian (+1.8%), LINKASSURE (+8.9%), and MTNN (+4.1%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth declined to 3.5x from the 4.5x recorded in the previous day as 39 tickers gained against the 11 that declined.