By Dipo Olowookere
The local stock market further appreciated by 0.19 per cent on Tuesday as the bulls maintained their grip on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited.
The release of the full-year financial statements of Zenith Bank and the declaration of final dividend triggered a buying pressure on the bourse during the session.
This also encouraged investors to look at other equities with possible price appreciation in the coming days, leading to strong investor sentiment as the market closed with 34 price gainers and 15 price losers.
At the close of trades, Seplat recorded the highest gain, rising by 9.99 per cent to N945.80, followed by Royal Exchange, which grew by 9.49 per cent to N1.50.
Courteville appreciated by 9.09 per cent to 60 kobo, Veritas Kapital improved by 4.55 per cent to 23 kobo, while FCMB gained 3.23 per cent to sell for N3.20.
On the flip side, Cutix recorded the biggest loss as its value went down by 10.00 per cent to N2.43, Learn Africa depreciated by 9.96 per cent to N2.35, Global Spectrum Energy fell by 9.79 per cent to N3.78, Caverton declined by 9.68 per cent to N1.40, while RT Briscoe depreciated by 9.41 per cent to 77 kobo.
During the trading day, investors exchanged 370.5 million shares worth N7.9 billion in 6,045 deals compared with the 300.8 million shares worth N2.8 billion executed in 5,434 deals, indicating an increase in the trading volume, value and number of deals by 23.20 per cent, 183.41 per cent and 11.24 per cent respectively.
Like in the preceding session, FCMB was the most active stock with the sale of 57.6 million units valued at N183.9 million, followed by Transcorp with 45.2 million units valued at N52.2 million.
Zenith Bank exchanged 23.1 million shares worth N624.8 million, MTN Nigeria transacted 22.3 million equities valued at N4.6 billion, while Niger Insurance sold 19.7 million stocks valued at N6.1 million.
Business Post reports that only the energy sector closed in the green territory of the five key sectors of the exchange, rising by 5.36 per cent at the first trading session of March 2022.
The insurance space lost 1.32 per cent, the banking index depreciated by 0.75 per cent, the industrial goods sector went down by 0.27 per cent, while the consumer goods counter declined by 0.17 per cent.
However, when the closing gong was beaten by 2:30 pm, the All-Share Index (ASI) was up by 88.20 points to 47,482.73 points from 47,394.53 points, while the market capitalisation was up by N48 billion to N25.591 trillion from N25.543 trillion.
