By Dipo Olowookere
The nation’s stock market was very busy on Thursday after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) disappointed many investors by significantly lowering treasury bills rates at the primary market on Wednesday.
Some investors, who had abandoned the equity, were left with no choice than to return to the market to source for high value stocks, especially in the banking space.
This resulted in the banking index rising broadly by 7.04 percent yesterday, with the insurance sector following with 1.96 percent growth and the industrial goods index growing by 1.24 percent and consumer goods sector appreciating by 0.98 percent. Only the energy sector declined yesterday as its index closed 0.67 percent lower.
Business Post reports that at the close of transactions on Thursday, the market recorded a 1.91 percent growth, leaving the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to close at 26,843.11 points and the market capitalisation at N13.067 trillion.
The market breadth closed positive with 34 price gainers and three price losers led by MTN Nigeria, which depreciated by 15 kobo to settle at N121.90 per share. Champion Breweries and Ikeja Hotel lost 9 kobo each to finish at 90 kobo and 87 kobo respectively.
On the gainers’ chart, Guinness Nigeria occupied the first position with N2.30 added to its share price to close at N26 per unit and was followed by GTBank, which gained N1.90 to end at N29.90 per unit.
Zenith Bank rose by N1.35 to finish at N19.15 per share, while Dangote Sugar and Access Bank appreciated by 95 kobo each to quote at N10.90 and N10.80 respectively.
In terms of the level of activity at the market on Thursday, it was mixed as the volume and number of deals executed increased by 2.34 percent and 27.73 percent respectively, while the value of transactions depreciated by 9.75 percent.
A total of 624.8 million shares worth N10.0 billion were transacted by investors in 6,426 deals compared with the 610.6 million units sold for N11.1 billion in 5,031 deals on Wednesday.
Zenith Bank remained the most traded stock at the market yesterday, though the volume reduced. A total of 167.9 million units were traded for N3.2 billion during the session.
Access Bank exchanged 99.3 million shares worth N1.1 billion, UBA sold 67.8 million equities for N500.3 million, Nigerian Breweries transacted 36.3 million shares valued at N1.7 billion, while Sterling Bank traded 31.4 million units for N68.5million.
Adedapo Adesanya