Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
Investors found solace in Nigerian stocks on Friday following news that the Naira was regaining its value against the Dollar in the unofficial market segments.
The information made Naira-denominated investments attractive again as speculators, who had earlier hoarded the foreign currency, pushed the greenback into the market after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) started to clear outstanding matured FX futures.
This strengthened the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited by 0.22 per cent yesterday due to the buying pressure, especially from equities in the consumer goods sector.
The consumer goods index was the lifesaver on the last trading session of the week, growing by 0.37 per cent, as the energy counter remained flat.
However, the banking space went down by 0.82 per cent, the industrial goods sector depreciated by 0.65 per cent, and the insurance counter decreased by 0.26 per cent.
When the closing gong was struck at 2:30 pm, the All-Share Index (ASI) gained 154.49 points to settle at 70,196.77 points versus Thursday’s closing value of 70,042.28 points, and the market capitalisation expanded by N75 billion to end at N38.557 trillion versus the preceding day’s N38.482 trillion.
International Breweries outperformed yesterday, gaining 9.64 per cent to close at N4.55, ABC Transport rose by 8.86 per cent to 86 Kobo, Champion Breweries expanded by 8.82 per cent to N3.70, Royal Exchange appreciated by 8.00 per cent to 54 Kobo, and AIICO Insurance increased by 7.14 per cent to 75 Kobo.
On the flip side, Prestige Assurance lost 8.89 per cent to trade at 41 Kobo, Tantalizers depreciated by 8.89 per cent to 41 Kobo, Chams shed 8.18 per cent to finish at N2.02, DAAR Communications declined 8.00 per cent to 23 Kobo, and NEM Insurance slumped by 5.88 per cent to N5.60.
The bears and the bulls shared the spoils during the trading session, as the market breadth index was flat with 26 price gainers and 26 price losers.
However, the activity chart was mixed as the trading value surged by 50.82 per cent to N9.2 billion from N6.1 billion, while the trading volume shrank by 21.90 per cent to 410.4 million shares from 525.5 million shares and the number of deals contracted by 23.34 per cent to 6,436 deals from 8,396 deals.
The stock with the highest volume of trade was Fidelity Bank, with 61.1 million units valued at N514.2 million, followed by Japaul with 47.8 million units worth N58.0 million. UBA exchanged 30.9 million units worth N636.5 million, GTCO transacted 29.9 million units valued at N1.1 billion, and AIICO Insurance sold 25.3 million units for N17.8 million.
