By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed 0.30 percent higher on Monday despite the market breadth, which measures the mood of investors, closing negative.
The equity market ended the session with 15 price gainers as against the 19 price losers led by Guinness Nigeria, Access Bank and other top stocks.
The gains printed by the market yesterday was influenced by MTN Nigeria, which added N4 to its share value to settle at N116 per unit.
Ardova gained N1.15 to close at N12.70 per share, Dangote Sugar rose by 35 kobo to N12.80 per share, UAC Nigeria appreciated by 30 kobo to sell at N7.20 per share, while Union Bank grew by 25 kobo to trade at N7 per unit.
At the other side, Guinness Nigeria topped the losers’ chart for losing 90 kobo to trade at N17.50 per share, while Access Bank depleted by 50 kobo to N6.10 per unit.
Lafarge lost 50 kobo to quote at N10.30 per unit, UBA fell by 25 kobo to sell at N5.80 per share, while NEM Insurance declined by 22 kobo to N1.98 per unit.
Monday was the first day most businesses resumed operations at their physical offices after a 5-week lockdown was eased by the federal government.
On March 30, 2020, residents of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States were ordered to remain indoors as part of efforts to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus disease. But yesterday, the restriction was eased.
At the stock exchange, where most trading activities are still being down remotely, the level of activity was mixed on Monday.
Business Post reports that 249.9 million shares worth N2.4 billion were traded in 6,538 deals compared with the 359.5 million equities valued at N3.3 billion transacted in 4,946 deals at the previous trading day.
This indicated a rise in the number of deals by 32.19 percent and a decline in the volume and value of shares by 30.49 percent and 26.46 percent respectively.
Interest in banking stocks still remained high like in the previous sessions and GTBank ended as the most active with 44.5 million units traded for N935.2 million.
FBN Holdings transacted 40.7 million shares worth N187.4 million, UBA exchanged 24.8 million stocks for N144.6 million, Zenith Bank transacted 22.9 million equities valued at N328.5 million, while Access Bank traded 14.5 million shares valued at N89.4 million.
A look at the sectoral performance showed that only the oil/gas index and the consumer goods index closed positive yesterday by 0.65 percent and 0.15 percent respectively.
Every other sector ended negative, with the insurance sector declining by 1.95 percent, the industrial goods space lost 1.31 percent, while the banking counter fell by 1.21 percent.
However, the benchmark index, which is the All-Share Index (ASI), increased by 68.85 points to 23,089.86 points from 23,021.01 points, while the market capitalisation appreciated by N35 billion to N12.033 trillion from N11.998 trillion.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka