Bulls Tighten Grip on Nigerian Stocks by 0.62%

By Dipo Olowookere

Transactions remained bullish at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday as the market further gained 0.62 percent.

This boosted the All-Share Index (ASI) by 140.53 points to 22,868.40 points from 22,727.87 points, and also the market capitalisation by N73 billion to N11.918 trillion from N11.845 trillion.

At the midweek trading session, the volume of stocks exchanged by investors increased by 4.05 percent to 277.4 million from 266.6 million, while the value decreased by 7.44 percent to N2.6 billion from N2.8 billion, with the number of deals up by 4.81 percent to 4,464 from 4,259.

For the second day running, FBN Holding emerged the most traded stock, selling 56.6 million units worth N256.9 million.

UBA transacted 52.8 million shares valued at N318.4 million, LASACO Assurance traded 24.0 million shares worth N6.3 million, GTBank exchanged 22.3 million equities valued at N470.4 million, while Zenith Bank traded 21.7 million stocks for N322.1 million.

Again, the market breadth ended positive with 14 price advancers and 12 price decliners.

MTN Nigeria topped the gainers’ chart with a price appreciation of N2.50. The telco stock closed yesterday at N107.40 per share.

Ardova gained 95 kobo to sell at N10.50 per unit, UAC Nigeria appreciated by 60 kobo to trade at N6.80 per share, Vitafoam rose by 45 kobo to finish at N4.96 per unit, while Lafarge Africa appreciated by 30 kobo to sell at N11.50 per share.

Conversely, Eterna led the losers’ log during the session, losing 23 kobo to sell at N2.16 per unit, and was followed by Zenith Bank, which depleted by 15 kobo to N14.70 per share.

University Press lost 8 kobo to trade at 97 kobo per share, Caverton fell by 5 kobo to quote at N2.30 per share, while Cornerstone Insurance declined by 4 kobo to sell at 55 kobo per unit.

A look at the sectoral performance on Wednesday showed that the oil/gas sector was the ‘star boy’, gaining 0.43 percent. The consumer goods sector rose by 0.40 percent, industrial goods index appreciated by 0.26 percent, while the banking counter gained 0.22 percent. Only the insurance space closed in red after losing 0.22 percent.