Insurance companies boost intraday rally on Nigerian Exchange

AXA Mansard, AIICO, and Custodian Insurance, among other industry players, are driving the intraday rally on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) trading platform on Wednesday. The stock market uptrend is said to be minimal, driven by lightweight stocks dominating the ongoing bull runs during the trading hours. In anticipation of the recapitalisation in the insurance sector, investors have shifted attention to underpriced insurance names in the stock market. All the listed insurance companies had a combined market capitalization of less than N700 billion at the beginning of the month. The latest rally has forced a re-rating of the insurance stock with the hope that recapitalisation will begin.
At the same time, stockbrokers reported some price movement in banking and oil and gas names with minimal rally coming from the consumer goods segment at the press time. At midday, the NGX All Share Index witnessed a gain of 0.07%, Alpha Morgan Limited told investors in an emailed note, reflecting a bullish market sentiment. Stock analysts said the slight uptick was driven by investor interest in some mid- to high-capitalized stocks. Top gainers during the intraday session include MANSARD (9.99%), AIICO (9.93%), CUSTODIAN, OANDO, and WEMABANK. Others are UACN, NAHCO, UCAP, NASCON, FCMB, FIRSTHOLDCO, and ACCESSCORP, among others.
However, the bears resurfaced in today’s equities trading, paring some of the previous session’s gains,  as the NGX All-Share Index (ASI) declined by 0.13%, closing at 145,864.80 points. As a result, the year-to-date return slipped to 41.72%, from the 41.90% in the prior session. Market capitalisation also declined by 0.13%, settling at N92.28trn. The market downturn was largely driven by selloffs in WAPCO (-2.14%), ZENITHBANK (-1.96%), and GTCO (-1.31%), which outnumbered demands for UACN (+9.72%), CUSTODIAN (+8.18%), and WEMA (+5.75%). Market activity was mixed, with trade volume up by 5.06%, while value of transaction declined by 16.65%. UNIVINSURE (+9.77%) dominated the volume chart with 193.43mn units exchanged, while ACCESSCORP (-0.18%) led the value board, posting N2.35bn worth of trades. Market breadth closed positive at 2.48x, indicating a broader advance with 51 gainers against 20 decliners. BUAFOODS(+10.0%) topped the gainers’ chart, while THOMASWY (-10.0%) led the losers’ list.