Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The mopping up of equities in the industrial goods space on Monday led the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to a positive start this week. The market closed 0.14 percent higher yesterday.
Gains by stocks in the industrial goods and consumer goods sectors contributed to this as their respective indices closed higher by 1.58 percent and 0.10 percent.
However, sentiment in the banking sector remained weak as the index fell marginally by 0.02 percent, while the insurance index depreciated by 0.46 percent, with the oil and gas index declining slightly by 0.02 percent.
However, at the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 35.72 percent to 26,384.45 points from 26,348.73 points, while the market capitalisation rose by N17 billion to N12.844 trillion from N12.827 trillion.
Business Post reports that despite the market breadth closing positive yesterday with 12 price gainers and seven price losers, the activity level was mixed with the volume of transactions rising by 30.95 percent and the value going down by 57.19 percent. But the number of deals executed by investors improved by 41.12 percent.
Investors traded 485.9 million shares worth N1.1 billion in 3,861 deals on Monday compared with the 371.0 million equities worth N2.5 billion transacted last Friday in 2,736 deals.
Veritas Kapital Assurance was the most traded equity at the market yesterday as the company sold 346.7 million units of its shares worth N69.3 million.
Zenith Bank exchanged 22.0 million stocks worth N374.1 million, Courtville exchanged 21.5 million equities valued at N4.9 million, Access Bank traded 21.2 million shares for N155.0 million, while Transcorp exchanged 11.1 million stocks for N11.3 million.
On the price movement chart, CCNN emerged as the biggest price gainer after adding 90 kobo to its share value to close at N15.90 per unit, while Flour Mills followed with a gain of 45 kobo to settle at N15.50 per unit.
Lafarge Africa appreciated by 25 kobo to finish at N14.95 per share, Sterling Bank rose by 6 kobo to end at N2 per share, while Tripple Gee grabbed 5 kobo to trade at 64 per share.
At the other end, UAC Nigeria led the losers’ table as its share price went down by 50 kobo to close at N6 per share, while GTBank followed with a loss of 10 kobo to end at N26.20 per share.
The trio of Forte Oil, University Press and Axa Mansard lost 5 kobo each to close at N16 per share, N1.10 per share and N1.65 per share respectively.
