By Dipo Olowookere
The bulls extended their stay on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Wednesday following a 0.12 per cent growth, which was largely driven by MTN Nigeria, GTCO, Oando and Honeywell Flour Mills.
Business Post reports that despite the positive outcome of the market, investor sentiment still remained negative as there were 18 price losers and 14 price gainers led by UPDC, which rose by 9.64 per cent to N1.82.
Northern Nigerian Flour Mills appreciated by 9.59 per cent to N8.00, Oando grew by 6.21 per cent to N4.62, Learn Africa improved by 5.88 per cent to N1.44, while Honeywell Flour increased by 3.83 per cent to N4.07.
Conversely, Transcorp Hotels lost 10.00 per cent to settle at N4.50, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance went down by 9.43 per cent to 48 kobo, Prestige Assurance dropped 8.33 per cent to trade at 44 kobo, Champion Breweries declined by 8.17 per cent to N1.91, while Lasaco Assurance fell by 7.69 per cent to N1.20.
A look at the performance of the five major sectors of the market gave a true picture of the market breadth as the energy, insurance and banking sectors lost 2.00 per cent, 1.15 per cent and 0.39 per cent each, while the consumer goods and the industrial goods counters closed flat.
However, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 47.84 points to close at 38,968.34 points compared with the previous day’s 38,920.50 points, while the market capitalisation went up by N25 billion to settle at N20.303 trillion as against N20.278 trillion it ended on Tuesday.
On the activity chart, it was mixed at the midweek session as the trading value rose by 58.27 per cent to N3.0 trillion from N1.9 billion, while the trading volume decreased by 38.11 per cent to 141.4 million units from 228.5 million units, with the number of deals dropping 8.80 per cent to 3,079 deals from 3,376 deals.
Universal Insurance was the most active stock with the sale of 18.0 million units worth N3.6 million, Zenith Bank sold 9.7 million units valued at N229.4 million, United Capital transacted 9.3 million units worth N76.2 million, Transcorp traded 9.1 million units valued at N8.3 million, while Access Bank exchanged 9.0 million units for N83.8 million.
