Nigerian equities broke into a major rally on Thursday as investors stepped up bargain-hunting across the sectors and subgroups of the stock market.

With nearly three gainers to one loser, the underlying positive sentiments at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) dominated transactions across the low, medium and highly capitalised stocks.

Benchmark indices at the Exchange showed an average day-on-day gain of 1.05 per cent, equivalent to net capital gain of N92 billion. Aggregate market value of all quoted equities rose from N8.743 trillion to close at N8.835 trillion.

The All Share Index (ASI), the main index for the market, also increased from 25,267.68 points to close at 25,533.82 points. The gain helped to moderate the negative average year-to-date return to -4.99 per cent.

Sectoral indices also showed widespread buying sentiments. The NSE Banking Index rose by 1.2 per cent. The NSE Industrial Goods Index appreciated by 1.0 per cent. The NSE Consumer Goods Index rallied by 0.7 per cent. The NSE Oil & Gas Index rose by 0.6 per cent while the NSE Insurance Index inched up by 0.4 per cent.

There were 24 gainers against nine losers. Mobil Oil Nigeria led the gainers with a gain of N5.01 to close at N300.01. Dangote Cement followed with a gain of N3 to close at N165. Unilever Nigeria rose by N1.49 to close at N33.49. Nigerian Breweries added N1 to close at N131 while Forte Oil rose by 80 kobo to close at N47.80 per share.

On the other hand, Guinness Nigeria led the losers with a loss of 80 kobo to close at N60. UAC of Nigeria followed with a drop of 30 kobo to close at N13 while Cement Company of Northern Nigeria declined by 23 kobo to close at N4.47 per share.

Total turnover stood at 352 million shares valued at N2.45 billion in 2,438 deals. The three most active stocks were Continental Insurance, 58.02 million shares; Staco Insurance, 56.45 million shares and Zenith Bank, which recorded a turnover of 44.68 million shares.

Market analysts said they expected the uptrend to continue in the last trading session of the week as investors continue to hunt for value stocks.

Gsent Talks.....Taking You Further