Nigerian Equities Open Week Strong as Bulls, Bears Battle for Control

By Dipo Olowookere

Trading activities kicked off the new week on a positive note after the market upturned early losses to finish 0.51 percent higher.

Business Post reports that during transactions on Monday, both the bulls and bears battled for supremacy, but the market eventually settled for the bulls, reversing the loss posted at the market’s last trading session.

However, the volume and value of equities transacted by investors on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) depreciated by 47.62 percent and 55.74 percent respectively.

A total of 730.6 million shares worth N6.3 billion exchanged hands today in 7,964 deals compared with 1.4 billion shares traded last Friday in 11,385 deals worth N14.2 billion.

Transcorp continued this week as investors’ toast, emerging the most traded stock in terms of volume, exchanging a total of 193.9 million units worth N400 million.

It was followed by Diamond Bank, which sold 85.7 million shares valued at N221.9 million, and FCMB, which transacted 57.6 million shares for N157.9 million.

Fidelity Bank traded 55.9 million shares worth N179.7 million, while Access Bank exchanged 35.3 million shares valued at N414.3 million.

Business Post reports that the market breadth closed at equilibrium on Monday with 26 price losers and gainers.

International Breweries led the advancers’ table, appreciating by N3 to close at N63 per share, while Dangote Cement also went up by the same amount, N3, to settle at N255 per share.

GTBank rose by N1.10k to close at N50.10k per share, PZ Cussons grew by N1 to finish at N23.99k per share, and Zenith Bank added 74k to its share value to wrap the day at N32 per share.

However, it was a bad day for Lafarge, which lost N2.84k of its share price to close at N54.6k, leading the laggards’ chart at the close of business today.

Forte Oil followed with N2.47k of its share value lost to settle at N50.15k per share, and Nigerian Breweries, which fell by N1.97k to end at N149.8k per share.

Flour Mills of Nigeria went down by N1.35k to finish at N30 per share, while Dangote Sugar depreciated by 97k to close at N20.30k per share.

A look at the major market indices showed that the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 220.10 points to settle at 43,119.00 points, while the market capitalisation improved by N78.9 billion to close at N15.5 trillion, with the year-to-date (YtD) return expanding to 12.75 percent.