Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
There was a huge profit-taking in the banking space of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday. However, the market managed a marginal growth of 0.07 percent at the close of business.
From when the market opened for transactions till activities were wrapped up yesterday, traders were offloading banking equities in their portfolios.
This dented a huge blow on the index, crumbling by 6.25 percent. The sector was one of the two losers at the market on Thursday. The second was the industrial goods sector, which fell by 0.57 percent.
However, the consumer goods counter was the ‘starboy’ of the session, rising by 5.69 percent, while the insurance counter gained 1.19 percent, with the energy index rising by 0.25 percent.
For the main indices, the All-Share Index (ASI) appreciated by 14.90 points to settle at 22,554.84 points, while the market capitalisation increased by N8 billion to finish at N11.755 trillion.
Business Post observed that the mood of the market was negative yesterday despite the gains printed by the local bourse. This was because there were more price losers than gainers. A total of 18 stocks appreciated in price during the session as against 20 equities that suffered losses.
The positive momentum was sustained as a result of the N83 gained by Nestle Nigeria, which closed at N913.20 per share as well as the N3.50 added to the share value of MTN Nigeria, closing at N101.50 per unit.
Dangote Cement gained N2.90 to sell at N136 per unit, Nigerian Breweries improved by N2.65 to trade at N29.45 per share, while the share price of Conoil went up by N1.40 to N15.85 per unit.
On the losers’ chart, Zenith Bank dominated as a result of the N1.55 it lost during the trading day, closing at N14.35 per unit.
GTBank depreciated by N1.40 to trade at N20.50 per share, Stanbic IBTC dropped N1.10 to sell at N27.50 per unit, BUA Cement was downgraded by N1 to N29.40 per share, while Lafarge Africa was crushed by 85 kobo to N12 per unit.
The activity chart was strong on Thursday as a result of the 29.60 percent rise recorded by the trading value, 16.13 percent growth in the trading volume and the 15.85 increase achieved by the number of deals.
A total of 379.1 million stocks worth N4.3 billion were traded on Thursday in 5,985 deals in contrast to the 326.4 million equities valued at N3.3 billion transacted on Wednesday in 5,166 deals.
Zenith Bank was the most traded stock at the market yesterday. Investors bought and sold 84.6 million units of the lender’s stocks worth N1.3 billion.
FBN Holdings transacted 65.7 million shares valued at N307.9 million, Ekocorp exchanged 58.0 million units for N348.0 million, UBA traded 29.2 million shares valued at N176.1 million, while GTBank traded 26.3 million stocks for N542.7 million.
