By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Nigerian equity market performed better on Friday on the day Mr Donald Trump was sworn-in as the 45th President of the United States of America (USA) to reverse the losing streaks it had had to struggle with for three days since Tuesday.
The upward movement achieved by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) was heavily backed by Mobil Plc and 26 other equities.
The gains recorded by the 27 stocks made up for the heavy losses witnessed by three blue chip stocks; Total, Nestle and Seplat, which lost a cumulative sum of N25.97k. This is N5.36k more than what the top five advancing stocks gained at the market on Friday at the close trading activities.
Business Post reports that the market capital improved by N7.5 billion to close at N9.022 trillion, while the all-share index increased by 21.94 points to finish at 26,223.54 points.
However, the volume of shares pulled by investors dropped.
Our correspondent reports that a total of 203 million shares exchanged hands on the floor of the NSE, which were transacted in 2,804 deals valued at N2.02 billion against the 196.5 million units traded in 3,317 deals on Thursday worth N2.6 billion.
Shares of Access Bank attracted investors at the market, accounting for a total of 32 million units exchanging hands at N223.4 million, while UCAP followed trading 25 million units at N81.9 million.
While Mobil led the gainers’ chart by adding N12 to close at N276 per share, 7up rose by N5.8k to finish at N106.73k per share.
Likewise, Guinness went up by N2.95k to end at N67 per share, NASCON advanced by 30k to close at N7.55k per share and Stanbic IBTC progressed by 28k to finish at N16.10k per share.
On the other hand, Total recorded the highest loss at the market shedding N13.97k to end at N281per share, while Nestle trailed losing N7 to close at N745 per share.
Also, Seplat fell by N5 to finish at N365 per share, Forte Oil slumped by 50k to end at N66.50k per share and ETI slipped by 10k to close at N10 per share.
Adedapo Adesanya