By Dipo Olowookere
Transactions on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) started the first trading day of the week on a positive note.
This was mainly influenced by buying pressure witnessed on large cap stocks in the Industrial Goods and the Oil and Gas sectors.
At the close of business activities, the local bourse appreciated by 1.49 percent, expanding the year-to-date return to 13.78 percent.
In addition, the market breadth closed positive with 32 price gainers and 25 price losers.
The biggest price gainer was Seplat, which added N59.90k to its share value to settle at N760 per share.
It was followed by Total Plc, which grew by N11.50k to close at N254 per share, and Dangote Cement, which appreciated by N10 to finish at N275 per share.
Presco advanced by N5.25k to end at N78 per share, while Beta Glass increased by N3.60k to close at N75.70k per share.
At the other hand, Mobil led the losers’ table after going down by N2 to settle at N175 per share, while Guinness Nigeria went down by N1.70k to close at N98 per share.
Nigerian Breweries depreciated by N1.10k to end at N129.90k per share, Flour Mills declined by 55k to close at N33.5k per share, while Zenith Bank lost 45k to finish at N31.10k per share.
But despite the gains recorded by the Nigerian bourse on Monday, the volume and value of equities traded by investors went down by 37.48 percent and 37.13 percent respectively.
A total of 252 million shares worth N5.8 billion were traded today in 4,270 deals compared with 403 million shares sold at the last trading session valued at N9 billion in exchanged in 4,738 deals.
Business Post reports that GTBank emerged the most trading stock at the market on Monday, trading 46 million units for N2.3 billion.
It was trailed by Access Bank, which sold 28.7 million shares worth N383 million, and FBN Holdings, which transacted 25.4 million equities for N292.7 million.
Courteville Business Solutions exchanged 15.4 million equities valued at N4.7 million, while UBA traded 13.6 million shares at N173.9 million.
Business Post expects the positive momentum to be maintained tomorrow as investors await release of more companies’ earnings this week.
