By Dipo Olowookere
The decision of traders, especially foreign portfolio investors, to inject funds into stocks due to the floating of the Naira by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) further fortified the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Wednesday by 0.36 per cent.
It was observed that equities in the energy, financial and industrial goods sectors attracted the attention of investors in the midweek session, resulting in the insurance, energy, and industrial goods indices closing higher by 1.93 per cent, 1.84 per cent, and 1.84 per cent apiece.
However, the banking and consumer goods counters witnessed profit-taking yesterday, shrinking them by 0.60 per cent and 0.11 per cent, respectively.
But they could not move the stock exchange to the bears, as the All-Share Index (ASI) jumped by 213.98 points to 59,323.95 points from 59,110.02 points, while the market capitalisation leapt by N116 billion to N32.302 trillion from N32.186 trillion.
Business Post reports that investor sentiment remained very strong, buoyed by a positive market breadth index, which closed with 44 price gainers and 25 price losers.
Afromedia rose by 10.00 per cent on Wednesday to trade at 22 Kobo, eTranzact improved by 9.91 per cent to N5.88, FTN Cocoa increased by 9.88 per cent to N1.78, Neimeth also appreciated by 9.88 per cent to N1.78, and Unity Bank gained 9.76 per cent to close at N1.35.
On the flip side, Jaiz Bank declined by 10.00 per cent to N1.53, Meyer shed 9.88 per cent to settle at N2.19, Ikeja Hotel depreciated by 9.86 per cent to quote at N3.20, Tantalizers dropped 9.09 per cent to finish at 20 Kobo, and Cadbury Nigeria slumped by 9.04 per cent to N17.10.
A look at the activity chart showed that Universal Insurance was the busiest stock after it transacted 141.3 million units valued at N35.1 million, followed by GTCO, which exchanged 44.9 million units for N1.4 billion.
Further, Japaul traded 37.7 million shares valued at N23.3 million, UBA sold 31.7 million stocks for N362.0 million, and Access Holdings transacted 27.5 million equities worth N409.2 million.
At the close of transactions, a total of 643.0 million shares worth N6.1 billion exchanged hands in 7,806 deals compared with the 588.9 million shares worth N9.0 billion that exchanged hands a day earlier in 8,272 deals.
This implied that in the midweek trading day, the volume of trades went up by 9.19 per cent, the value of transactions depleted by 32.22 per cent, and the number of deals deflated by 5.63 per cent.
Adedapo Adesanya