By Dipo Olowookere
Trading activities at the nation’s stock market closed slightly positive on Tuesday as bargain hunting on a few stocks took the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited back to the bulls’ territory.
Business Post reports that Nigerian stocks appreciated by 0.09 per cent yesterday, though investor sentiment remained weak as the market closed with 10 price gainers and 31 price losers.
This occurred because investors were treading cautiously as they observe various factors, including the macro-economic environment and the reactions on the release of nine-month earnings of companies before taking a buy position.
When the market closed for the day, the All-Share Index (ASI) returned to the 42,000-point threshold after it gained 36.60 points to settle at 42,013.39 points compared with 41,976.79 points it fell into a day earlier.
On its part, the market capitalisation of the exchange increased on Tuesday by N19 billion to finish at N21.925 trillion in contrast to N21.906 trillion it ended on Monday.
Three sectors were the major drivers of the growth posted by the stock exchange yesterday as the industrial goods space rose by 1.09 per cent, the energy counter gained 0.72 per cent, while the consumer goods sector rose by 0.57 per cent.
However, the banking counter depreciated during the trading session by 1.51 per cent, while the insurance sector declined by 1.49 per cent.
A look at the price movement log indicated that International Breweries topped the gainers’ table with a price appreciation of 9.62 per cent to trade at N5.70.
Lasaco Assurance gained 8.33 per cent to sell for N1.17, Linkage Assurance grew by 7.55 per cent to 57 kobo, Chams rose by 4.35 per cent to 24 kobo, while Oando improved by 4.09 per cent to N4.84.
On the losers’ chart, UAC Nigeria led with a price depreciation of 9.73 per cent to settle at N10.20, FTN Cocoa dropped 8.70 per cent to sell for 42 kobo, FBN Holdings went down by 6.98 per cent to N10.00, Unity Bank lost 4.90 per cent to finish at 54 kobo, while Consolidated Hallmark Insurance depleted by 6.67 per cent to close at 56 kobo.
As for the activity chart, it was mixed on Tuesday as the trading value increased by 1.06 per cent to N3.3 billion from N3.2 billion, while the trading volume went down by 15.65 per cent to 319.0 million units from 378.2 million units, with the number of deals declining by 13.97 per cent to 5,492 deals from 6,384 deals.
The most active stock for the day was UBA as it sold 52.6 million shares worth N446.9 million, FBN Holdings transacted 30.5 million stocks for N313.8 million, Zenith Bank exchanged 29.9 million equities worth N747.6 million, Chams traded 15.5 million stocks valued at N3.5 million, while Transcorp traded 14.1 million shares worth N14.4 million.
Adedapo Adesanya