Financial Stocks Buoy NSE Market Indices’ 0.02% Marginal Growth

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) market indices on Tuesday extended its rally with a slight growth of 0.02 percent.

This was boosted by gains recorded by both banking and insurance stocks, which were enough to rub off the losses posted by the large cap equities in the consumer goods sector.

However, the market breadth remained negative with 30 depreciating stocks and 21 appreciating equities recorded today.

The day’s biggest gainer was GTBank, which increased by 75k to close at N48 per share, while NASCON appreciated by 55k to settle at N20.55k per share.

Also, Flour Mills rose by 55k to finish at N32.55k per share, while Zenith Bank grew by 45k to end at N31.50k per share, and UBA advanced by 40k to close at N12.60k per share.

On the flip side, Nestle led the laggards’ table after losing N10 of its share value to settle at N1370 per share.

It was trailed by Mobil, which sank by N9 to close at N190 per share, and Nigerian Breweries, which fell by N3.50k to end at N124.50k per share.

Conoil depreciated by N3.40k today to close at N32.10k per share, while Julius Berger declined by N1.35k to finish at N25.95k per share.

Business Post reports that the volume of transactions traded and market turnover advanced by 11.75 percent and 15 percent respectively.

A total of 570.3 million shares worth N5.3 billion were traded in 5,794 deals on Wednesday compared with 510.3 million equities transacted on Tuesday in 5,757 deals valued at N4.6 billion.

Custodian and Allied was the busiest stock on the floor of the NSE today, trading a total of 94.5 million shares worth N377.8 million.

FBN Holdings followed with 61.6 million equities transacted for N683.3 million, and Fidelity Bank, which sold 55.9 million shares valued at N169.3 million.

FCMB exchanged 48.3 million equities worth N110.6 million, while Transcorp transacted 31.5 million shares for N63.9 million.

For the market indices, the All-Share Index (ASI) appreciated by 9.92 points to settle at 42,158.32 points, while the market capitalisation increased by N3.6 billion, and the Year-to-Date (YtD) date expanded to 10.24 percent.