Energy, Industrial Goods Stocks Weaken Market by N44bn

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) returned to the negative territory on Friday after rising by 1.40 per cent on Thursday.

During the trading day yesterday, the market slumped by 0.34 per cent as a result of selling pressure on some energy, industrial goods and consumer goods stocks.

Business Post reports that the oil/gas index went down by 4.98 per cent, while the industrial goods counter lost 1.01 per cent, with the consumer goods space losing 0.08 per cent.

However, the insurance goods index put up a good performance on Friday, rising by 0.29 per cent, while the banking sector appreciated by 0.01 per cent.

For the benchmark index, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 84.54 points to 24,427.73 points from 24,512.27 points, while the market capitalisation grew by N44 billion to N12.743 trillion from N12.787 trillion.

Despite the weak performance of the stock exchange yesterday, the market breadth closed positive with 17 price gainers and 13 price losers.

The worst performing stock of the session was Seplat, which is expected to release its half-year results next week. The stock lost N38.60 yesterday to settle at N347.40 per unit.

BUA Cement lost N1 to sell at N39 per share, Unilever Nigeria depreciated by 60 kobo to close at N12.25 per unit, UBA declined by 10 kobo to finish at N6 per share, while Lafarge Africa depreciated by 5 kobo to settle at N10.95 per unit.

The gainers’ chart was led by Julius Berger yesterday after appreciating by N1.55 to settle at N17.05 per share.

Stanbic IBTC gained N1 to close at N30 per share, Custodian Investment rose by 50 kobo to N5.50 per unit, Dangote Sugar grew by 20 kobo to sell at N11.90 per unit, while NAHCO improved by 17 kobo to N2.20 per share.

More trades occurred at the local bourse yesterday as the total number of shares transacted by investors increased by 6.03 per cent to 174.2 million units from the previous day’s 164.3 million units.

Also, the value of traded stocks rose by 12.17 per cent to N2.4 billion from N2.1 billion, while the number of deals rose by 24.68 per cent to 3,723 deals from 2,986 deals.

Zenith Bank was investors’ delight yesterday, transacting 34.6 million units worth N537.6 million, and was followed by FBN Holdings, which traded 28.1 million units valued at N140.1 million.

UBA transacted 14.5 million stocks for N87.9 million, Access Bank exchanged 9.8 million shares worth N60.4 million, while Nigerian Breweries sold 9.7 million equities valued at N301.3 million.