Bargain Hunters Raise NSE Market Capitalisation to N12.882trn

By Dipo Olowookere

The market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) increased to N12.882 trillion on Wednesday, thanks to bargain hunters.

At the midweek trading session, investors, inspired the positive half-year earnings released so far, began to mop up some stocks trading at low prices. This raised the market value by N23 billion from the previous N12.859 trillion.

It equally elevated the All-Share Index (ASI) by 0.18 per cent or 43.57 points to 24,693.73 points from the previous day’s 24,650.16 points.

The positive performance of the session was boosted by the oil/gas space, which appreciated by 4.58 per cent. The insurance index grew by 1.40 per cent, the consumer goods counter gained 0.51 per cent, while the industrial goods improved by 0.27 per cent.

Business Post observed that the banking sector was the only decliner of the five key sectors yesterday, going down by 0.21 per cent.

Unlike in the previous session, the market breadth closed positive on Wednesday with 18 price advancers and 14 price decliners.

The highest price gainer was Seplat, which appreciated by N28.20 to settle at N310.20 per share, while BUA Cement followed with a 40 kobo price appreciation to close at N39.40 per unit.

UAC Nigeria grew by 20 kobo to quote at N7 per share, PZ Cussons gained 20 kobo to sell for N4.10 per share, while GlaxoSmithKline appreciated by 10 kobo to close at N4.90 per unit.

On the losers’ table, Guinness Nigeria dominated after shedding 50 kobo to close at N13 per unit and was trailed by Lafarge Africa, which depreciated by 25 kobo to trade at N11.75 per share.

Studio Press lost 19 kobo to finish at N1.80 per share, Arbico depreciated by 15 kobo to N1.39 per unit, while NPF Microfinance Bank depleted by 13 kobo to N1.18 per share.

For the second straight day, the activity chart was in red following the 2.51 per cent, 32.45 per cent and 50.78 per cent decline in the number of deals, trading volume and trading value respectively.

A total of 101.6 million shares worth N973.6 million were traded yesterday in 3,685 deals compared with the previous day’s 150.4 million stocks valued at N2.0 billion in 3,780 deals.

A breakdown showed that GTBank accounted for 10.9 million units of the total traded shares with a value of N244.7 million.

FBN Holdings transacted 9.7 million equities valued at N49.1 million, UBA traded 9.5 million stocks for N58.6 million, Ecobank exchanged 6.1 million shares worth N25.4 million, while Sterling Bank transacted 5.9 million stocks for N7.0 million.