Market Gains 1.73% Monday as Airtel Africa Shares Hit N704

By Dipo Olowookere

The first trading session of the week opened bullish following the 1.73 per cent growth recorded by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday.

The outcome was mainly influenced by positive price movement in the shares of Airtel Africa, Dangote Cement and 24 other equities.

The telco gained N64 yesterday to settle at N704 per share and this is already causing some investors to ask the drive behind the recent growth in the stock’s value.

During the session, Dangote Cement appreciated by N5 to sell at N188 per unit, Guinness Nigeria moved up by 65 kobo to N17.65 per unit, Lafarge Africa gained 45 kobo to trade at N21 per unit, while BOC Gases improved by 43 kobo to quote at N7.20 per share.

The exchange closed with 14 price losers yesterday with NASCON dominating the chart after its shares went down by N1.50 to settle at N14.50 per unit.

Ardova depreciated by 85 kobo to sell at N12.20 per share, International Breweries declined by 71 kobo to N6.47 per share, Union Bank dropped 30 kobo to N5.15 per unit, while Cutix went down by 18 kobo to finish at N1.72 per share.

On the activity chart, Zenith Bank was the most active stock on Monday with the sale of 38.6 million units of its securities valued at N875.7 million.

GTBank traded 19.2 million shares worth N632.2 million, Access Bank transacted 16.1 million equities valued at N130.1 million, Regency Alliance exchanged 11.9 million stocks for N2.4 million, while Mutual Benefits traded 9.2 million shares for N2.3 million.

At the close of transactions, a total of 208.1 million stocks worth N3.7 billion exchanged hands in 4,154 deals yesterday in contrast to the 796.1 million shares worth N4.5 billion transacted last Friday in 4,810 deals, indicating 73.86 decline in the trading volume, 17.13 per decline in the trading value and 13.64 per cent decline in the number of deals.

Business Post reports that the All-Share Index (ASI) increased on Monday by 592.70 points to finish at 34,843.44 points as against 34,250.74 points of the previous session, while the market capitalisation grew by N309 billion to close at N18.211 trillion versus the earlier N17.902 trillion.