By Dipo Olowookere
The last trading day of 2017 on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) finished positive after the benchmark index rose by 0.66 percent.
The All-Share Index (ASI) garnered 252.45 points on Friday to close at 38,243.19 points, while the market capitalisation raked N89.8 billion to settle at 13.610 trillion.
Business Post reports that at the close of transactions today, the Year-to-Date (YtD) return finished the year at 42.30 percent.
The volume of equities transacted by investors on Friday rose by 74.1 percent from 322.4 million yesterday to 561.3 million shares today.
Also, the value of shares sold by investors grew by 90.4 percent from N3.6 billion on Thursday to N6.9 billion on Friday.
It was a very busy day for AIICO as it emerged the most traded stock today in terms of volume, trading a total of 210.9 million shares worth N109.7 million.
Transcorp sold 99 million shares valued at N145.5 million, while Custodian exchanged 58.3 million shares at N218.7 million.
Fidelity Bank transacted 38.9 million shares worth N95.8 million, while Mobil sold 24.5 million shares valued at N4.2 billion.
Today’s highest price gainer was Nestle, which increased by N70.99k to settle at N1555.99k per share.
Seplat came second after growing by N29.82k to close at N626.22k per share, and Mobil claimed the third spot after adding N7.65k to its share value to finish at N194.60k per share.
Unilever gained 78k to settle at N41 per share, while International Breweries appreciated by 50k to end at N54.50k per share.
On the flip side, Guinness Nigeria lost N2 of its share price to finish today at N94 per share, while Eterna fell by 43k to close at N4.6k per share.
NASCON depreciated by 37k to end at N18.50k per share, Nigerian Breweries declined by 30k to close at N134.90k per share, and FBN Holdings went down by 19k to settle at N8.80k per share.
