Demand for Consumer Goods Stocks Drive NSE Index 0.18% Higher

By Dipo Olowookere

Equities in the consumer goods sector of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) kept hopes alive on Wednesday, helping the market to remain in the green territory by 0.18 per cent.

The sector was one of the two that performed well yesterday, rising by 0.55 per cent, while the other sector, banking, rose by 0.36 per cent.

It was observed that there was a demand for some stocks in the two sectors during the session because of the latest developments at the market, especially with the release of half-year earnings of the major banks on the exchange and the interim dividends proposed.

However, the insurance index depreciated by 1.08 per cent, while the energy counter declined by 0.19 per cent, with the industrial goods space closing flat.

Business Post reports that Nigerian Breweries and Stanbic IBTC were the biggest price gainers at the midweek trading session, appreciating by N1 each to finish at N40 per unit and N37.50 per share respectively.

Flour Mills and Guinness Nigeria gained 20 kobo each to settle at N19 per share and N14 per share respectively, while BUA Cement improved by 10 kobo to close at N40.30 per unit.

On the opposite side, GlaxoSmithKline was the heaviest price decliner, reducing by 25 kobo to settle at N4.85 per share, while Vitafoam lost 21 kobo to close at N5.50 per share.

Lafarge Africa depreciated by 20 kobo to finish at N12 per unit, Axa Mansard lost 17 kobo to end at N1.67 per unit, while UBA decreased by 10 kobo to trade at N6.45 per share.

During the session, the volume of shares transacted by investors reduced by 83.83 per cent to 173.6 million units from 1.1 billion units of the previous session.

Also, the value of the stocks traded went down by 53.33 per cent to N982.2 million from N2.1 billion, while the number of deals increased by 2.39 per cent to 3,298 from 3,221.

The most traded stock of the day was Transcorp, which transacted 26.8 million stocks worth N15.4 million, while Regency Assurance transacted 20.3 million equities valued at N4.6 million.

UBA sold 13.3 million shares worth N86.2 million, Zenith Bank exchanged 13.1 million stocks valued at N220.7 million, while Royal Exchange traded 8.8 million shares valued at N2.9 million.

The All-Share Index (ASI) increased yesterday by 46.24 points to 25,460.00 points from 25,413.76 points, while the market capitalisation appreciated by N24 billion to N13.282 trillion from N13.258 trillion.