Bulls Reclaim Customs Street Lagos as Stocks Grow 0.07%

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited located at Customs Street, Lagos closed bullish on Thursday by 0.07 per cent after the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that the economy recorded a 5.01 per cent growth in the second quarter of this year.

This information gladdened investors, who used the opportunity to cherrypick stocks trading at relatively cheap prices in anticipation of a taking profit adventure in the nearest future.

This pushed the All-Share Index (ASI) higher yesterday by 27.36 points to 39,477.18 points from 39,449.82 points and lifted the market capitalisation by N14 billion to N20.568 trillion from N20.554 trillion.

From the data obtained by Business Post from the exchange, Eterna closed as the biggest price riser with a price appreciation of 9.97 per cent, quoting at N7.50.

UPDC grew by 9.74 per cent to N1.69, AIICO Insurance rose by 8.42 per cent to N1.03, GlaxoSmithKline improved by 7.94 per cent to N6.80, while Honeywell Flour jumped by 7.45 per cent to N3.46.

On the other side, Ikeja Hotel ended the trading session as the heaviest price loser, depreciating by 10.00 per cent to trade at N1.26.

SCOA Nigeria declined by 9.43 per cent to N1.44, ABC Transport went down by 8.33 per cent to 33 kobo, Champion Breweries lost 4.55 per cent to sell at N2.10, while Japaul dropped 3.85 per cent to finish at 50 kobo.

Yesterday, the activity chart was mixed as the trading value rose by 69.81 per cent to N1.8 billion from N1.1 billion, the trading volume went down by 6.05 per cent to 186.3 million shares from the previous day’s 198.3 million shares, while the number of deals decreased by 7.37 per cent to 3,595 deals from 3,881 deals.

Sovereign Trust Insurance was the most active stock with the sale of 19.7 million stocks worth N4.6 million, followed by Lafarge Africa, which traded 17.4 million shares valued at N382.4 million.

Honeywell Flour traded 15.0 million equities for N52.4 million, Mutual Benefits Assurance exchanged 14.7 million shares worth N4.5 million, while UPDC transacted 10.4 million stocks valued at N17.3 million.

In terms of the performance of the sectors, the consumer goods and the industrial goods sector closed flat, while the insurance, energy and banking counters grew by 2.33 per cent, 0.20 per cent and 0.09 per cent respectively.