Nigeria’s equities market extended its winning streak on Monday as banking stocks helped lift the benchmark index by 0.10% on the first day of the Dangote Refinery IPO.
The Nigerian Exchange All-Share Index (ASI) rose to 243,299.24 points from 243,052.74 points, while market capitalisation increased by N159.8 billion to N157.75 trillion.
The modest gain extended the market’s recovery to a fourth consecutive session and pushed its year-to-date return to 56.35%.
The positive close came as investors turned their attention to the much-anticipated Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals IPO, which opened on the same day.
Banking stocks provided much of the support for the market, with the NGX Banking Index rising 0.68% to 2,546.04 points.
Fidelity Bank gained 5.3%, First HoldCo rose 3.7%, while Custodian Investment advanced 7.1%. NGX Group was the overall top gainer, rising 10% to N162.80.
Nestlé Nigeria also gained 3.6%, helping to offset weakness in other sectors.
However, the broader market closed with negative breadth, as 28 stocks declined against 19 gainers, indicating that the index’s advance was concentrated among selected large and actively traded stocks.
Trading activity also weakened during the session. Volume fell 22.41% to 428.97 million shares from 552.89 million, while turnover declined 20.42% to N20.52 billion.
Despite the decline in traded value and volume, the number of deals increased by 19.51% to 54,592.
The Insurance Index was the weakest sector, declining 0.53%, while the Consumer Goods Index fell 0.23%. The Oil and Gas Index also slipped 0.05%.
The Industrial and Commodity indices closed flat at 9,994.54 points and 1,888.79 points respectively.
The market’s performance came against the backdrop of intense investor interest in the Dangote Refinery IPO, which recorded N1.476 trillion in subscriptions from 402,634 transactions within its first hour of opening.
The strong early demand for the IPO, combined with continued buying interest in selected banking stocks, provided a positive start to the week’s trading despite the broader decline in market breadth.
