Bulls Sustain Hold on Nigerian Stocks as Seplat, NB Gain

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Transactions on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) finished on Wednesday in the upward trend as bulls continued hold on the market for the second straight day.

Business Post reports that the market breadth also closed positive today with 27 stocks appreciating compared with 19 stocks that depreciated, while the year-to-date return inched up to 5.25 percent.

Furthermore, the market capitalisation rose by N67 billion to end at N9.779 trillion, while the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 193.13 points to finish at 28,286.43 points.

At the close of trading activities on the floor of the NSE on Wednesday, the volume and value of shares transacted at the equities market ended higher.

While investors today exchanged a total of 311.3 million shares worth N3.5 billion executed in 4,194 deals, a total of 212.7 million shares were traded yesterday in 3,908 deals valued at N2.2 billion.

Our correspondent further reports that Seplat topped the gainers’ chart with a rise of N17.30k to close at N390 per share, while Nigerian Breweries trailed with a gain of N2 to finish at N146 per share.

International Breweries increased by N1.2k to end at N22 per share, Dangote Cement progressed by 99k to close at N163 per share and ConOil advanced by 75k to finish at N34 per share.

However, Forte Oil emerged the biggest loser at the stock market on Wednesday, going down by N2.29k to finish at N45.60k per share.

It was followed by Stanbic IBTC, which depreciated by 99k to close at N25.1k per share and Oando, which dropped 45k to end at N8.55k per share.

Other losers on the top five decliners’ chart were Cadbury, which slump by 22k to close at N9.90k per share and UACN, which weakened by 19k to finish at N14.33k per share.