The Nigerian stock market on Wednesday edged higher following positive reactions to perceived currency reforms by the new administration. The foreign exchange market yesterday record- ed a major convergence as the dollar exchanged for same amount at both official and parallel markets.

At the market, sustained bargain hunting in MTNN (+10.0%) alongside ZENITHBANK (+9.74%), GTCO(+9.42%) and SE- PLAT (+10.00%) drove the broader index’s strong performance outweighing losses in DANGCEM (-0.98%), BUACEMENT (-6.52%), JBERGER (-4.46%) and ARDOVA (-5.06%). This resulted to a 3.1 per cent increase in the benchmark index.

Thus, the All-Share Index closed at 59,985.10 points. The year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 17.04 per cent, with market capitalisation gaining N991.81 billion to close at N32.66 trillion. The total volume traded advanced by 9.7 per cent to 1.30 billion units, valued at N21.08 billion, and ex- changed in 11,947 deals. UBA was the most traded stock by volume at 230.76 million units, while GTCO was the most traded stock by value at N4.20 billion.

Analysing by sectors, the Banking (+26.5%) and Insurance (+23.0%) indices recorded the most significant gains, followed by the Oil & Gas (+16.0%), and Consumer Goods (+4.1%) indices. The Industrial Goods (-1.1%) in- dex was the sole loser of the day. As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was largely positive (5.4x), as 70 tick- ers gained relative to 13 losers.

DANGSUGAR (+10.0%) and INTBREW (+10.0%) topped the gain- ers’ list, while PHARMDEKO (-9.7%) and CWG (-9.4%) recorded the highest losses of the day.