By Dipo Olowookere
Nigerian stocks sustained a positive momentum on Monday with a 0.15 per cent growth on the back of bargain hunting in banking equities.
Investors maintained their buying interest in these shares as a result of the positive half-year earnings from them. This helped to keep the market in the green territory despite investor sentiment turning negative at the first trading session in August.
Business Post reports that there were more price losers than price gainers yesterday; 17 price risers and 26 price decliners, indicating a negative market breadth.
Despite this, the general outcome was bullish as the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 57.64 points to 38,604.72 points from 38,547.08 points, while the market capitalisation rose by N30 billion to N20.114 trillion from N20.084 trillion.
As earlier stated, the banking space was the major reason for the growth reported yesterday as it slightly appreciated by 0.02 per cent at the close of transactions.
The energy sector lost 0.60 per cent, the consumer goods space went down by 0.40 per cent, the industrial goods counter followed with 0.30 per cent loss, while the insurance index depreciated by 0.20 per cent.
On the gainers’ chart, Julius Berger was on top with a price appreciation of 8.89 per cent to settle at N24.50 and was trailed by NPF Microfinance Bank, which grew by 8.00 per cent to trade at N1.89.
Regency Assurance gained 7.14 per cent to sell for 45 kobo, Linkage Assurance rose by 6.67 per cent to 64 kobo, while Mutual Benefits Assurance gained 5.41 per cent to close at 39 kobo.
On the losers’ table, Eterna sat comfortably on top with a loss of 10.00 per cent to trade at N6.39 and was followed by Neimeth, which went down by 9.71 per cent to quote at N1.58.
Tripple G depreciated by 9.09 per cent to 90 kobo, Dangote Sugar fell by 5.41 per cent to N17.50, while Lafarge Africa declined by 5.02 per cent to trade at N21.75.
At the opening session of the week, investors traded 244.3 million stocks worth N1.9 billion in 4,609 deals compared with the previous session’s 387.1 million stocks worth N3.8 billion transacted in 4,700 deals, indicating that the trading volume, value and number of deals decreased by 36.90 per cent, 50.00 per cent and 1.94 per cent respectively.
It was observed that Transcorp was the most traded stock, selling 40.3 million units valued at N40.0 million, while C&I Leasing traded 26.1 million units worth N122.6 million.
In addition, FCMB transacted 17.7 million shares for N55.7 million, Oando traded 11.8 million stocks for N57.2 million, while Sovereign Trust Insurance exchanged 8.2 million equities worth N2.2 million.
Adedapo Adesanya