Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited extended its rally for the second trading session on Wednesday, closing 1.05 per cent higher on the back of bargain hunting by investors.
The listing of BUA Foods on the exchange spurred buying interest, which, in turn, kept the bulls at the bourse for another day as the investor sentiment was better than the preceding session.
Data showed that a total of 22 stocks ended on the gainers’ chart, while 17 equities were on the losers’ log at the close of transactions for the day.
The duo of BUA Foods and Airtel Africa gained 10.00 per cent each to trade at N44.00 and N1,050.50 respectively, while Oando, AIICO Insurance and Ardova appreciated by 9.73 per cent, 8.33 per cent and 7.69 per cent each to settle at N4.85, 78 kobo and N12.60 apiece.
On the flip side, Unity Bank depreciated by 9.62 per cent to sell for 47 kobo, Royal Exchange lost 9.41 per cent to trade at 77 kobo, Regency Assurance fell by 8.16 per cent to 45 kobo, Union Bank dropped 6.90 per cent to quote at N5.40, while Mutual Benefits declined by 6.25 per cent to 30 kobo.
In terms of the performance of the five key sectors of the exchange, it was observed that the energy and insurance indices grew by 3.12 per cent and 0.85 per cent respectively, while the industrial goods, banking and consumer goods counters depreciated by 2.42 per cent, 0.50 per cent and 0.02 per cent respectively.
But at the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) rose by 760.31 points to 43,476.75 points from 42,716.44 points as the market capitalisation increased by N243 billion to N23.427 trillion from N23.184 trillion.
During the trading day, a total of 1.2 billion shares worth N43.0 billion were traded in 4,032 deals compared with the 216.7 million shares worth N1.5 billion transacted in 4,080 deals on Tuesday.
This showed that the number of deals went down by 1.18 per cent, while the volume of trades and the value of transactions went up by 472.75 per cent and 2,734.78 per cent respectively.
BUA Foods was the most traded stock at the midweek session and this was largely because of the cross deal it had. When the market closed for the session, it traded a total of 1.0 billion shares worth N40.5 billion.
Wema Bank sold 25.0 million stocks valued at N19.0 million, Transcorp exchanged 25.0 million equities for N24.6 million, NGX Group transacted 14.5 million shares worth N285.8 million, while UBA traded 14.0 million stocks valued at N112.2 million.
