BY FRANCIS EZEM

Ahead of the final outcome of the 2019 elections held Saturday, Nigeria’s bourse resumed in a bullish trend after investors’ one week of stock taking shortly before the elections, which gave rise to bearish trends.

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission at the close election collation activities on Monday announced the results of 10 states and the Federal Capital Territory FCT, in which the All Progressives Congress APC won in seven states while the Peoples Democratic Party PDP won three and the FCT.

But in a swift reaction, the major opposition party the PDP has rejected the results, citing serious discrepancies in the election figures in many of the states, which it argued are at variance with figures initially recorded and announced at the pooling units and has therefore summoned its legal team, which is expected to meet in Abuja later today.

The results show that President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC won in Ekiti, Gombe, Kwara, Kogi, Yobe, Osun and Nasarawa, while Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP won in Ebonyi, Ondo, Abia, Enugu and the FCT.

However stock market operators could not attribute the gains to any positive outcome in the general election, but rather chose to wait for subsequent trading activities in the coming days to ascertain whether the current mood of market is because of the elections. Records show that the equity market experienced mild bargain hunting in bellwether stocks but at close of trading yesterday the market recorded an upswing in benchmark index, the NSE All Share Index by 0.57 per cent to close at 32,700.12 points.

Analysts have also projected that the market would be moderated as investors await the outcome of the elections this week. Heavy gains in bellwethers such as Nigerian Breweries (+4 percent), Zenith Bank (+1 percent) and Dangote Cement (+1 percent) significantly impacted the market to close on a positive note. Consequently, the Year to Date, YtD gain inched to 4.0 percent while market capitalisation, another stock market gauge, improved slightly by N69 billion to settle at N12.2trillion. Analysts task investors on cautious trading in equities Activity level was, however, mixed as volume traded decreased by 0.4 percent to 219.7million units while value traded increased by 147.7 percent to N5.5billion. Nigerian Breweries (42.7 million units), Diamond Bank (30.8million units) and Access Bank (20.7million units) led the top trades by volume while Nigerian Breweries (N3.6billion), Guaranty Trust Bank (N733.9million) and Zenith Bank (N337.0million) led in value of stocks traded.

Meanwhile, across sectors, performance was bullish as all indices trended northward. The Consumer Goods index led gainers, up 1.3 percent on the back of buying interests in Nigerian Breweries (+4.0 percent) and Dangote Flour (+10.0 percent ). The Insurance and Banking indices trailed appreciating by 1.1percent  and 0.8 percent  due to gains in NEM Insurance  (+3.4 percent ), Sovereign Trust Insurance (+8.7 percent ), Zenith Bank (+1.0 percent ) and UBA (+2.5percent ). In the same vein, the Oil & Gas index advanced by 0.1 percent as Mobil Oil (+1.1 percent ) and Oando (+1.5 percent) closed in the green. Lastly, the Industrial Goods index closed flat with a bullish bias as investors took advantage of bargain opportunities in Dangote Cement (+0.1 percent) towards the end of trading session. Investor sentiments measured by the market breadth strengthened as 25 stocks advanced against eight decliners. The top gainers chart showed that Dangote Flour led the cream of gainers rising by  (+10.0 percent) to close at N 11.05, followed by ABC Transport  (+9.6 percent )  to close at  N0.57. Veritas Kapital  garnered (+9.5 percent to close at N0.23, followed by  Niger Insurance (9.09 ) percent to close at  N0.24 and Royal Exchange  up by 9.09 percent  to close at N 0.36. On the other hand, Union Diagnostic led the losers chart dropping by (-6.5 percent) to close at N0.29, followed by Total Nigeria (-2.6 percent). CUTIX declined by (-1.6 percent) to close at N1.87, followed by Flour Mills ( -0.99) to close at N20.00 and  Access Bank  plummeted  by (-0.78 percent ) to close at N6.35.

Details of the released results show that Buhari won in Kwara with 308,984 votes while Atiku scored 138,984 votes. The result was announced on Monday at the National Collation Centre, Abuja, by Prof. Abdullahi Bala, of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, who is the Collation Officer for the election in Kwara in Prof. Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressives Party secured 140 votes; Ositelu Babatunde of Accord (A) got 149 votes; while Ibrahim Hassan of the African Peoples Alliance scored 1,010 votes.

However, Atiku was declared the winner of the election in his home state of Adamawa having polled 410,266 votes to defeat the APC candidate who scored 378,078 votes even as Buhari of the APC won in Ekiti, as winner of Saturday’s election in Ekiti, scoring 219, 231 votes to beat Atiku, who scored 154,032, among others.