The local bourse kicked off the new week with a positive performance, rising by 0.26% to close at 97,864.63 points. This uptrend was primarily driven by renewed investor interest in some top banking stocks, including UBA (+5.73%), Zenith (+2.50%), FBNH (+3.18%), Fidelity (+8.43%), Accesscorp (+3.35%) and GTCO (+1.21%) . NB (+4.63%) also closed higher. On the other hand, the losers were led by Oando (-2.38%) and Wema (-2.38%).
The market breadth was relatively flat with 42 gainers and 39 losers, though the losses were muted by significant gains especially in the tier one banks. Notably, some large cap stocks like BUAFoods, BUACem, Dangcem and Geregu remained quiet.
Turnover improved later in the day to N5.9bln ($4.0mln), buoyed by blocks trades in Access, involving offshore interest and FBNH. The year-to-date return on the ASI has improved to 30.88%. We expect the market to trade around current levels in the next session.