By Dipo Olowookere
The renewed interest of investors in domestic stocks continued on Thursday as the buying pressure further elevated the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited by 0.18 per cent at the close of transactions.
Business Post reports that Eterna and Berger Paints were the best-performing equities at the market yesterday, with each appreciating by 10.00 per cent to settle at N6.05 and N7.70 respectively.
Oando gained 9.90 per cent to sell for N5.33, Meyer improved its share price by 9.84 per cent to trade at N2.12, while Skyway Aviation chalked up 9.83 per cent to finish at N6.37.
On the flip side, SCOA Nigeria closed the session as the worst-performing stock as a result of the 9.77 per cent fall it posted, trading at N1.94.
ABC Transport lost 6.45 per cent to quote at 29 kobo, Neimeth went down by 3.55 per cent to N1.36, May and Baker depreciated by 2.95 per cent to N4.27, while AIICO Insurance dropped 1.45 per cent to sell at 68 kobo.
From the analysis of the price movement index, the exchange closed yesterday with 29 price gainers and nine price losers, indicating a positive breadth and a strong investor sentiment.
This was largely because of the renewed confidence in the market as the five major sectors of the bourse were in the green, with energy, banking, insurance, consumer goods and industrial goods counters closing higher by 1.61 per cent, 0.51 per cent, 0.44 per cent, 0.19 per cent and 0.06 per cent respectively.
When the market closed for the day, the All-Share Index (ASI) rose by 85.15 points to 48,223.86 points from 48,138.71 points, while the market capitalisation jumped by N46 billion to N25.998 trillion from N25.952 trillion.
As for the activity chart, it was not an improvement from the preceding day as the trading volume and value went down by 30.00 per cent and 14.81 per cent, while the number of deals increased by 5.93 per cent.
A total of 244.7 million shares worth N3.2 billion exchanged hands in 4,859 deals on Thursday compared with the 349.6 million shares worth N3.7 billion transacted in 4,587 deals on Wednesday.
A breakdown indicated that Custodian Investment attracted the highest trading volume with 38.7 million stocks worth N255.5 million, Oando traded 19.5 million shares valued at N101.3 million, Fidelity Bank exchanged 17.3 million equities worth N66.9 million, Nigerian Breweries transacted 15.3 million shares for N733.0 million, while Transcorp sold 13.9 million stocks for N14.0 million.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka