By Dipo Olowookere
Trading activities at the Nigerian bourse finished bullish on the last session of the week with a 0.13 per cent appreciation influenced by renewed bargain hunting in consumer goods stocks and others.
During the session, investors cherry-picked equities with good fundamentals but have traded at lower prices lately due to profit-taking and this action drove the All Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited higher to 52,908.24 points and boosted the market capitalisation to N28.523 trillion.
Apart from the industrial goods sector, which marginally fell by 0.01 per cent, every other counter closed higher with the insurance space rising by 1.41 per cent. The consumer goods index rose by 1.05 per cent, the banking sector appreciated by 0.95 per cent, while the energy counter gained 0.53 per cent.
From the analysis of the market data, a total of 22 stocks appreciated in price on Friday while 16 equities depreciated in value, indicating a positive market breadth and a slightly strong investor sentiment.
NEM Insurance recorded the higher price increase, 9.95 per cent, closing at N4.20. Chams improved by 9.09 per cent to 24 kobo, Champion Breweries appreciated by 8.06 per cent to N3.89, Nigerian Breweries jumped by 7.06 per cent to N63.70, while Eterna climbed higher by 6.65 per cent to N7.70.
Conversely, UPDC REIT suffered the heaviest loss during the session as its value dropped 9.33 per cent to N3.40, Coronation Insurance fell by 4.55 per cent to 42 kobo, UAC Nigeria declined by 4.35 per cent to N11.00, Caverton crashed by 3.36 per cent to N1.15, while International Breweries decreased by 3.33 per cent to N7.25.
A look at the activity chart showed that UAC Nigeria was the most active stock as it sold 73.9 million shares valued at N812.9 million, FBN Holdings exchanged 53.1 million equities worth N596.8 million, Transcorp traded 43.9 million stocks valued at N56.4 million, UPDC REIT sold 12.4 million equities worth N43.4 million, while Zenith Bank transacted 9.8 million shares valued at N228.5 million.
At the close of business, a total of 283.0 million stocks valued at N3.4 billion exchanged hands in 4,245 deals compared with the 274.4 million stocks worth N4.0 billion traded in 5,011 deals a day earlier, representing an increase in the trading volume by 3.11 per cent and a decline in the trading value and the number of deals by 16.30 per cent and 15.29 per cent respectively.
