By Dipo Olowookere
A local energy firm, Conoil Plc, ended the first trading session of this week as the best-performing stock as investors showed more confidence in the domestic equity market again.
It was rough for the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited last week but transactions on Monday were positive and market participants could not resist picking some shares trading at lower prices in anticipation of later gains.
This action lifted the market by 0.34 per cent at the close of business and saw the value of Conoil up by 9.97 per cent to N32.00. Pharma-Deko appreciated by 9.37 per cent to N1.75, Learn Africa went up by 8.72 per cent to N2.37, FTN Cocoa gained 5.88 per cent to trade at 36 kobo, while Chams resurrected by 4.17 per cent to 25 kobo.
However, Japaul ended the day as the worst-performing stock after its price shed 6.25 per cent to 30 kobo, ABC Transport lost 6.06 per cent to 31 kobo, Unilever declined by 3.01 per cent to sell at N14.50, AIICO Insurance dropped 2.94 per cent to 66 kobo, while Jaiz Bank went down by 2.22 per cent to 88 kobo.
Business Post reports that the exchange finished the session with 19 price gainers and 13 price losers, indicating a positive market breadth and a strong investor sentiment.
The activity chart was in green yesterday as the trading volume, value and number trades improved by 167.03 per cent, 164.04 per cent and 1.22 per cent respectively.
Investors transacted 755.6 million shares worth N8.9 billion in 4,297 deals compared with the 283.0 million shares worth N3.4 billion transacted in 4,245 deals in the previous session.
It was observed that a cross deal of over 600 million units of FBN Holdings contributed to the spike in trading volume yesterday and when the market closed for the day, the stock ended as the most active, trading 610.4 million units worth N6.8 billion.
Flour Mills traded 23.0 million shares valued at N803.9 million, Coronation Insurance exchanged 21.6 million stocks for N8.8 million, Transcorp traded 11.6 million equities worth N14.6 million, while Zenith Bank sold 8.9 million shares valued at N208.9 million.
Two sectors largely contributed to the gains recorded on Monday and they were the energy and industrial goods sectors, which appreciated by 0.68 per cent and 0.05 per cent respectively.
Sadly, the insurance, banking and consumer goods depreciated by 0.44 per cent, 0.42 per cent and 0.12 per cent respectively.
But for the All Share Index (ASI), it rose by 178.22 points to 53,086.46 points from 52,908.24 points, while the market capitalisation gained N96 billion to end at N28.619 trillion compared with the preceding session’s N28.523 trillion.