May 2024 started on a positive note for investors with a gain of approximately N303bn on the first trading day.
Continuing the momentum from the previous day, the local bourse showed a significant uptick, with the benchmark index rising by 0.55% to 98,762.78 points on Thursday. This positive trend was fueled by strong market sentiments following recent earnings reports and corporate announcements.
Investors have shown a consistent interest in stocks with solid fundamentals in the market, leveraging the bearish conditions to take strategic positions.
The market capitalisation of listed equities also saw a 0.55% increase to N55.86tn on Thursday, pushing the year-to-date return of the index to 32.08%.
Upon closing, there were more gainers (29) than losers (14). Flourmill and Presco Plc led the gainers with a 10% increase each, closing at N33.55 and N229.90 respectively. Sterling Financial Holding Company also posted a significant gain of 9.98% to reach N4.74.
Among the losers were NASCON Allied Industries, UPL, and Omatek, with their shares declining by 9.99%, 9.29%, and 9.21% respectively.
Market activity saw an uptick with total traded volume increasing by 20.46% to 665.2 million units. However, the total traded value dropped by 62.9% to N5.54bn, and the total number of deals decreased by 9.7% to 8,446 trades.
Across sectors, investor sentiments were notably positive in the Banking, and Oil & Gas indexes, which saw increases of 3.20% and 0.95% respectively. Stocks like FBN Holdings, Access Holdings, Wema Bank, Conoil Plc, and JapaulGold garnered significant interest.
Furthermore, the Consumer Goods, Industrial Goods, and Industrial Goods indexes also closed on a positive note with gains of 0.67%, 0.58%, and 0.01% respectively. Dangote Sugar, WAPIC, CAP Plc, Livestock, and Julius Berger were among the preferred stocks in these sectors.
Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc emerged as the most traded security by volume with 362.82 million units exchanged in 16 trades. AccessCorp topped the list in terms of traded value at N954.62m.