By Dipo Olowookere
Despite a stormy week on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last week, shares of McNichols Plc navigated the challenges and posted a growth.
During the 5-day trading week, the equity price of the homegrown fast-moving consumer brand food and beverage company rose by 43.14 per cent to settle at 73 kobo per unit.
The firm led the gainers’ chart, which had 22 members, lower than 41 it had the preceding the week, with Jaiz Bank in the second position after growing by 10.77 per cent to finish at 72 per share.
Eterna gained 10.58 per cent to N5.75 per unit, NCR Nigeria appreciated by 9.94 per cent to close at N3.43 per unit, while Multiverse Mining grew by 9.09 per cent to end at 24 kobo per share.
Business Post reports that the market bled by 1.66 per cent last week as a result of the selloff in the 60 equities led by Linkage Assurance, which lost 33.33 per cent to settle at 60 kobo per unit.
Japaul fell by 17.58 per cent to sell for 75 kobo per share, AIICO went down by 13.57 per cent to trade at N1.21 per unit, Julius Berger dropped 13.02 per cent to settle at N19.70 per share, while Regency Assurance declined by 11.76 per cent to 30 per unit.
In the week, investors traded 2.8 billion shares worth N29.7 billion in 31,380 deals, higher than the 2.6 billion shares worth N27.9 billion transacted the preceding week in 31,466 deals.
The financial services industry led the activity chart by volume with 1.9 billion shares valued at N20.3 billion traded in 15,160 deals, contributing 69.54 per cent and 68.53 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The conglomerates sector followed with 264.8 million shares worth N523.5 million traded in 1,528 deals, while the third place was the consumer goods industry, with a turnover of 197.4 million shares worth N3.4 billion in 6,240 deals.
The most active stocks were Union Bank, First Bank and Transcorp, accounting for 859.9 million shares worth N4.3 billion in 2,459 deals, contributing 31.08 per cent and 14.32 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Also, the All-Share Index (ASI) and market capitalisation depreciated by 1.66 per cent to close the week at 41,709.09 points and N21.819 trillion respectively.
Similarly, all other indices finished lower with the exception of NSE Growth index which appreciated by 3.26 per cent, while the NSE ASeMIndex closed flat.
