By Dipo Olowookere
The positive momentum witnessed at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) lately was maintained on Wednesday as bellwether stocks continued their impressive performances.
During the midweek trading session, which closed 3.02 percent higher, the All-Share Index (ASI) returned to the 22,000 region after rising by 659.99 points to 22,539.94 points from 21,879.95 points.
In the same vein, the market capitalisation improved by N344 billion to N11.747 trillion from N11.403 trillion. At the close of business, the year-to-date loss dropped to 16.03 percent.
Business Post reports that almost all the key sectors gained yesterday except for the insurance space, which lost 0.50 percent.
The banking index grew by 4.46 percent, the industrial goods counter appreciated by 3.02 percent, the consumer goods space rose by 2.51 percent, while the oil/gas sector improved by 1.12 percent.
Dangote Cement was the highest price gainer during the session as the cement stock added N12.10 to its share price to settle at N133.10 per unit.
Nigerian Breweries garnered N2.40 to sell at N26.80 per share, GTBank grew by N1.45 to trade at N21.90 per unit, Zenith Bank chalked up N1.40 to finish at N15.90 per share, while Dangote Sugar swallowed N1 to expand to N12.70 per unit.
On the flip side, Union Bank ended the midweek session as the worst performing stock after deflating by 30 kobo to N6.20 per unit.
Arbico lost 28 kobo to trade at N2.57 per share, Guinness Nigeria depreciated by 20 kobo to quote at N22.50 per share, Cutix declined by 12 kobo to N1.20 per unit, while Wema Bank decreased by 6 kobo to sell at 56 kobo per share.
The activity level remained on Wednesday following the 326.4 million stocks worth N3.3 billion traded in 5,166 deals compared with the 557.8 million shares valued at N2.6 billion exchanged in 5,310 deals on Tuesday.
This indicated that the value of transactions increased by 27.56 percent yesterday, the volume of the trades and the number of deals executed by investors decreased by 41.48 percent and 2.71 percent respectively.
FBN Holdings was the most active stock by volume on Wednesday. The lender traded 74.8 million units of its stocks worth N354.2 million.
Zenith Bank transacted 72.1 million shares worth N1.1 billion, GTBank exchanged 36.8 million equities valued at N794.0 million, UBA traded 22.9 million equities for N145.8 million, while FCMB sold 19.2 million shares for N32.3 million.
With the mood still relatively strong as reflected in the market breadth, 28 price gainers as against 11 price losers, the market is anticipated to close positive on Thursday, though a pocket of profit-taking is expected.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka