By Dipo Olowookere
The first trading session in 2022 on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited closed positive on Tuesday, January 4, despite a negative investor sentiment.
Business Post reports that the market closed with 27 price losers and 18 price gainers led by Academy Press, which appreciated by 10.00 per cent to 55 kobo.
Wema Bank grew by 9.72 per cent to trade at 79 kobo, Cornerstone Insurance rose by 8.70 per cent to 50 kobo, Neimeth improved by 8.00 per cent to N1.89, while BUA Cement gained 7.31 per cent to close at N71.95.
Conversely, the trio of Ardova, Northern Nigerian Flour Mill and Vitafoam lost 10.00 per cent each to settle at N11.70, N7.20 and N20.25 respectively, while Chams depreciated by 9.09 per cent to 20 kobo, with Sunu Assurances losing 8.89 per cent to trade at 41 kobo.
However, when the market closed for the day, the All-Share Index (ASI) was up by 309.79 points to settle at 43,026.23 points compared with the previous 42,716.44 points, while the market capitalisation grew by 3.98 per cent or N1.9 trillion to N23.184 trillion from N21.297 trillion.
The industrial goods and banking sectors appreciated during the session by 2.97 per cent and 0.39 per cent respectively, while the consumer goods, energy and insurance counters went down by 0.92 per cent, 0.50 per cent and 0.43 per cent apiece.
A further look at the market data showed that the trading volume went down by 52.41 per cent to 216.7 million from 455.2 million, the trading value fell by 84.67 per cent to N1.5 billion from N9.9 billion, while the number of deals rose by 44.22 per cent to 4,080 deals from 2,829 deals.
Chams ended the day as the most traded stock with the sale of 29.9 million equities valued at N6.1 million as Wema Bank transacted 17.1 million stocks worth N13.3 million to claim the next post.
Zenith Bank exchanged 11.0 million shares for N278.2 million, Transcorp traded 10.8 million stocks valued at N10.5 million, while Sovereign Trust Insurance transacted 10.5 million equities for N2.9 million.
Adedapo Adesanya