By Dipo Olowookere
Trading activities further closed positive on Thursday after appreciating by 0.38 per cent on the back of buying pressure from investors.
Business Post reports that more equities were traded yesterday, up by 25.97 per cent to 258.1 million units from 204.9 million units transacted on Wednesday.
However, the value of the trades went down by 56.18 per cent to N1.7 billion from N3.8 billion, while the number of deals grew by 0.11 per cent to 3,640 deals from 3,636 deals.
It was observed that the trading volume on Thursday was driven by Transcorp, which had 105.5 million units of its stocks traded for N61.4 million.
Zenith Bank exchanged 25.7 million shares worth N430.0 million, Chams traded 22.9 million shares valued at N4.8 million, GTBank transacted 12.5 million equities valued at N311.0 million, while FBN Holdings exchanged 7.8 million stocks for N39.6 million.
Despite the gains recorded by the market yesterday, the number of price losers, 18, was more than the price gainers, 13.
Nigerian Breweries was the highest price gainer, appreciating by N2 to finish at N36 per share, MTN Nigeria gained N1 to close at N119.50 per unit, Unilever Nigeria also improved by N1 to sell for N13 per share, Stanbic IBTC grew by 80 kobo to N33.80 per unit, while Flour Mills appreciated by 45 kobo to N19.85 per unit.
Conversely, BUA Cement topped the losers’ table during the session, falling by 10 kobo to end at N38.60 per share.
Ikeja Hotel lost 10 kobo to sell for 91 kobo per unit, Neimeth declined by 10 kobo to finish at N1.90 per share, Champion Breweries went down by 7 kobo to 71 kobo per share, while Sterling Bank crashed by 5 kobo to N1.15 per share.
Apart from the industrial goods sector, which depreciated by 0.12 per cent, every other sector closed positive with the insurance space rising by 2.61 per cent.
The consumer goods industry appreciated by 1.46 per cent, the oil/gas index grew by 0.31 per cent, while the banking counter improved by 0.03 per cent.
Also, the All-Share Index (ASI) appreciated at the close of business yesterday by 95.49 points to 25,236.97 points from 25,141.48 points, while the market capitalisation expanded by N50 billion to N13.165 trillion from N13.115 trillion.
