By Dipo Olowookere
The positive momentum started on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday when President Muhammadu assigned portfolios to the newly sworn-in Ministers stretched till Friday.
At the last trading session of the week yesterday, the local bourse finished 0.62 percent, thanks to the gains recorded by Nestle Nigeria and 23 other counters.
Data from the NSE showed that the All-Share Index (ASI) increased on Friday by 170.51 points to finish at 27,800.17 points, while the market capitalization went up by N83 billion to settle at N13.525 trillion.
As earlier stated, Nestle Nigeria led the gainers’ table at the market yesterday with a price appreciation of N10 to finish at N1230 per share.
Unilever Nigeria, which followed, appreciated by N2.45k to close at N29.45k per unit, while GTBank improved its share price by 90 kobo to end at N27.90k per share.
In addition, Forte Oil increased its share price by 65 kobo to close at N16 per unit, while Zenith Bank appreciated by 60 kobo to trade at N18.60k per share.
At the other end, Dangote Cement emerged as the session’s highest price decliner, going down by 50 kobo to settle at6 N166.50k per share.
Continental Reinsurance and Dangote Cement both went down by 10 kobo to finish at N1.30k and N9.50k respectively. Tripple Gee and Company shed 7 kobo to finish at 63 kobo per share, while Unity Bank depreciated by 6 kobo to end at 63 kobo per unit.
Business Post reports that the activity level was mixed on Friday with the volume of shares transacted by investors rising by 354.74 percent to 1.2 billion from 272.6 million on Thursday, while the value went down by 26.8 percent to N3.3 billion from N4.5 billion.
It was observed that shares of Sovereign Trust Insurance dominated the trading session yesterday, accounting for 900 million units worth N216 million.
FBN Holdings traded 80.1 million shares for N401.1 million, while Courtville exchanged 55.1 million equities valued at N12.1 million.
Furthermore, Access Bank transacted 36.4 million equities worth N236.9 million, while Transcorp sold 34.6 million valued at N36.9 million.
An analysis of the performance of the sectors indicated that only the insurance index closed in the red territory, going down by 1.92 percent.
The banking index gained 2.74 percent, the consumer goods index appreciated by 1.07 percent, the oil and gas index rose by 1.21 percent, while the industrial index closed 0.27 percent higher.
Adedapo Adesanya