By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian stock market recorded a significant growth of 1.21 percent on Friday after posting a marginal loss of 0.01 percent on Thursday, pushing the year-to-day return forward to 7.85 percent.
Business Post reports that this upward trend was boosted by gains recorded by the consumer goods sector.
Almost all the sectors posted positive performance yesterday with the exception of the oil and gas sector, which declined by 0.30 percent.
However, the consumer goods sector grew by 2.76 percent, banking sector appreciated by 0.91 percent, NSE30 rose by 1.46 percent and NSE50 increased by 1.34 percent.
At the close of business on Friday, the All-Share Index (ASI) went up by 492.06 points to settle at 41,244.89 points, while the market capitalisation increased by N169.2 billion to finish at N14.940 trillion.
It was observed that the Financial Services sector led the activity chart yesterday with 279.5 million shares sold for N1.9 billion and the Consumer Goods industry followed with a total of 14.8 million shares transacted for N679 million.
Mutual Benefits Assurance emerged the most active stock at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday, trading a total of 113 million units worth N27.1 million.
It was followed by FBN Holdings, which sold 36.1 million equities valued at N437.1 million, and Zenith Bank, which transacted 32.2 million stocks for N883.3 million.
UBA exchanged 26.6 million shares valued at N305.1 million, while Skye Bank sold 15.6 million equities for N12 million.
In all, a total of 319.3 million shares exchanged hands at the market yesterday in 3,863 deals worth N2.8 billion in contrast to the 378.2 million units sold in the previous session valued at N6.3 billion and executed in 4,780 deals.
This represented 15,56 percent decline in the volume of trades recorded on Friday as well as 55.36 percent drop in the value of transactions.
Despite this decline in the volume and value of trades on Friday, the market breadth ended positive with 24 price gainers and 15 price losers.
Nestle Nigeria outperformed others after adding N46.80k to its share value to close the day at N1615 per share.
It was followed by International Breweries, which gained N4.80k to finish at N51.80k per share, and Mobil Oil Nigeria, which improved by N4.40k to close at N174.40k per share.
Nigerian Breweries increased by N3 to end at N130 per share, while Julius Berger advanced by N1.25k to settle at N26.90k per share.
Conversely, Forte Oil turned out to be the day biggest loser, going down by N2.35k to close at N45.20k per share.
It was trailed by Cadbury Nigeria, which declined by 70k to finish at N13.80k per share, and NPF Microfinance Bank, which depreciated by 9k to end at N1.75k per share.
Unity Bank lost 5k to close at N1 per share, while Zenith Bank also went down by 5k to settle at N27.40k per share.
Business Post expects Friday’s positive performance to repeat itself on Monday when market activities resume of the floor of the NSE as investors digest Q1 earnings results and expect more releases next week.
Adedapo Adesanya