By Dipo Olowookere
What could have been another loss at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday was averted following the late comeback of some equities.
Sixteen stocks at the market managed to closed positive, helping the bourse to finish marginally higher by 0.02 per cent.
Dangote Sugar, which was the highest price gainer, appreciated by 30 kobo to finish at N12.60 per share, while Flour Mills, which was the next in line rose by 20 kobo to settle at N18.50 per unit.
UBA gained 15 kobo to trade at N6.65 per share, University Press appreciated by 11 kobo to sell for N1.22 per unit, while United Capital appreciated by 10 kobo to quote at N3.20 per share.
At the market yesterday, there were 13 price losers and they were topped by Conoil, which lost N1.65 to finish at N15.25 per share.
Ardova depreciated by N1.35 to close at N12.60 per share, Nigerian Breweries declined by N1 to N35 per unit, Oando decreased by 24 kobo to N2.24 per share, while Fidson lost 21 kobo to sell for N3.79 per share.
Business Post reports that trading activities improved yesterday as a total of 271.0 million stocks valued at N2.5 billion were traded by investors in the session in 3,693 deals.
At the previous session, a total of 161.2 million equities worth N1.9 billion were transacted by investors in 3,597 deals, indicating 68.08 per cent, 33.30 per cent and 2.67 per cent rise in the trading volume, value and the number of deals respectively.
Zenith Bank was the most traded stock of the day, transacting 35.8 million units valued at N600.2 million and was trailed by GTBank, which exchanged 35.3 million equities worth N877.0 million.
LASACO transacted 33.1 million equities for N9.9 million, Access Bank traded 23.7 million shares valued at N152.1 million, while Transcorp exchanged 15.5 million stocks for N9.4 million.
On a sectorial level, the insurance and banking sectors helped the market yesterday, appreciating by 0.89 per cent and 0.52 per cent respectively.
However, the oil/gas sector lost 1.83 per cent, the consumer goods index fell by 0.12 per cent, while the industrial goods space depreciated by 0.02 per cent.
For the All-Share Index (ASI), it improved by 3.82 points to 25,136.49 points from 25,132.67 points, while the market capitalisation gained N2 billion to close at N13.113 trillion in contrast to N13.111 trillion it ended the previous day.
