Nigerian stocks made a fairly big advance on Thursday, on course for a positive return this week, as the main equity index added N532.2 billion or 2 per cent as sector leaders Airtel Africa and Nestle drove gain. Huge buy interests in the two helped the market record its biggest appreciation since the turn of the year, a rare milestone at a point when a great deal of investment money is shifting to the fixed income space, where yield has improved reasonably for a while. A higher trade volume partly spurred the surge, with the size of trade expanding by 35 per cent when set beside that of the previous session. Market breadth closed positive as 18 advancers were reported compared to 11 losers. The 75 other stocks that traded on Thursday closed flat. The all-share index added 986.6 basis points to close at 49,661.9, while market capitalisation increased to N26.8 trillion.
The index has yielded 16.3 per cent so far this year.
TOP FIVE GAINERS
CWG led gainers, appreciating by 10 per cent to close at N0.99. Learn Africa rose to N2.47, notching up 9.78 per cent in the process. Caverton added 9.52 per cent to end trade at N1.15. Multiverse went up by 9.52 per cent to N2.30. Chams completed the top 5, climbing by 8 per cent to N0.27.
TOP FIVE LOSERS
Mutual Benefits led losers, declining by 9.68 per cent to close at N0.28. Honeywell Flour fell to N2.72, losing 8.42 per cent. Flour Mills slumped to N27, recording 7.06 per cent depreciation. Unity Bank shed 4.76 per cent to close at N0.40. Chams closed at N3.02, going down by 3.51 per cent.
TOP FIVE TRADES
In all, 226.5 million shares estimated at N2.8 billion were traded in 3,515 deals. Mutual Benefits was the most active stock with 74.5 million units of its shaRres worth N22.8 million traded in 124 deals. FBN Holdings traded 23.4 million shares priced at N251.9 million exchanged hands in 88 transactions. Access Holdings had 15.8 million shares valued at N130.2 million traded in 189 deals. UBA traded 15.3 million shares estimated at N107.1 million in 153 transactions. NEM traded 13.5 million shares valued at N62.1 million in 71 deals.
