By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) appreciated on Tuesday by 2.46 percent to extend its rally to the second trading session.
Business Post reports that at the market yesterday, the mood was very upbeat as investor appetite showed encouraging signs of improvement. This led to bargain hunting activities around large cap stocks at the market.
At the close of transactions, the market breadth ended positive with 42 price gainers and 15 price losers.
Apart from the oil and gas index which lost 0.56 percent on Tuesday, every other sector finished in the green territory.
NSEIND, NSEBNK10, NSEFBT10, and NSEINS10 all recorded respective gains of 3.21 percent, 3.19 percent, 2.70 percent, and 0.24 percent.
Nigerian Breweries was the biggest price gainer after increasing by N5.30k to finish at N111.30k per share.
It was followed by Dangote Cement, which rose by N5 to end at N228 per share, and Okomu Oil, which grew by N4 to settle at N84 per share.
International Breweries appreciated by N3 to end at N42 per share, while Lafarge went up by N1.65k to finish at N34.75k per share.
Conversely, Total Nigeria emerged the heaviest price loser yesterday with N8.70k of its share value lost to settle at N193.30k per share.
Presco trailed with 90 kobo of its value lost to finish at N70.35k per share, while UAC of Nigeria went down by 70 kobo to close at N14 per share.
Ecobank declined by 10 kobo to end at N19 per share, while NPF Microfinance Bank fell by 6 kobo to settle at N1.69k per share.
Despite the positive performance at the stock market on Tuesday, the value of equities traded by investors decreased by 15.20 percent, while the volume went up by 8.03 percent.
A total of 339.7 million equities exchanged hands on Tuesday in 4,436 deals worth N6 billion in contrast to the 314.4 million shares sold in 6,016 deals on Monday valued at N7 billion.
It was observed that the Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 296.3 million shares exchanged for N4.1 billion, while the Consumer Goods industry followed with 16.1 million shares transacted for N640 million.
Access Bank was investors’ toast at the market yesterday with a total of 133.1 million units sold for N1.4 billion.
It was trailed by GTBank, which traded 39.3 million units valued at N1.6 billion, and UBA, which exchanged 23.2 million units valued at N258.5 million.
Zenith Bank traded 20 million shares worth N533.3 million, while FBN Holdings sold 12.5 million equities valued at N136.7 million.
A look at the key market indicators showed that the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 903.94 points to settle at 37,854.92 points, while the market capitalisation went up by N327.4 billion to finish at N13.712 trillion.
Adedapo Adesanya