By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened the week bullish on Monday following gains recorded by equities in the consumer goods and insurance sectors. Business Post reports that the local equity market appreciated yesterday by 0.16 percent to reduce the year-to-date loss to 13.98 percent.
This sustained bullish sentiment was mainly influenced by the 2.73 percent growth posted by the consumer goods index and the 0.39 percent rise printed by the insurance index. Apart from these two sectors, every other closed bearish with the industrial goods space leading with a 0.49 percent loss and the banking index trailing with a decline of 0.32 percent, while the oil/gas index fell by 0.12 percent.
At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 44.36 points to settle at 27,035.78 points, crossing 27,000 mark from 26,991.42 points it ended last session, while the market capitalisation improved by N21.4 billion to close at N13.049 trillion.
The market breadth ended positive yesterday with 20 price gainers and 16 price losers.
Nestle Nigeria was the highest price gainer, adding N75 to its share price to close at N1300 per unit, while Presco followed with an addition of N3.25 to its share price to settle at N37.85 per unit.
Dangote Sugar gained N1.05 to end at N13.80 per share, Cadbury Nigeria improved by 80 kobo to close at N9.80 per share, while GTBank rose by 20 kobo to finish at N29.60 per unit.
At the other side of the coin, Okomu Oil closed as the day’s heaviest price loser, shedding N5.35 to finish at N49.65 per unit, while FBN Holdings lost 55 kobo to end at N6.95 per share.
Lafarge Africa went down by 30 kobo to settle at N14 per share, Access Bank fell by 25 kobo to trade at N9.80 per unit, while UBA depreciated by 15 kobo to sell at N7.35 per share.
A total of 230.7 million shares worth N3.2 billion were traded in 4,254 deals on Monday compared with the 207.4 million units valued at N2.8 billion transacted in 3,630 deals last Friday.
This indicated that the volume of shares exchanged by investors improved by 11.21 percent, while the value of the trades rose by 13.06 percent, with the number of deals rising by 17.19 percent.
Zenith Bank was the most active stock yesterday, trading 42.3 million units worth N798.2 million, while GTBank followed with a sale of 26.0 million units valued at N775.7 million.
FBN Holdings sold 19.8 million equities valued at N140.5 million, Transcorp exchanged 16.8 million equities valued at N17.2 million, while Fidelity Bank transacted 15.2 million shares for N30.8 million.
