By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for the third consecutive trading day closed positive following gains recorded by blue-chip stocks in the Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods sectors, which were enough to offset the losses posted by equities in the banking sector on Tuesday.
The local bourse was heading for the red zone until the late hours of the trading day, when the bulls started to take control of the market.
At the close of trading activities today, the Nigerian market settled in the green territory, appreciating by 0.22 percent to push the Year-to-Date (YtD) gain to 14.03 percent.
However, the market breadth ended negative today with a total of 26 price gainers and 29 price losers.
Nestle suffered the heaviest loss on Tuesday after its stock went down by N20 to settle at N1380 per share.
It was followed by Total Plc, which depreciated by N4 to close at N250 per share, and GTBank, which declined by 85k to finish at N48.50k per share.
Access Bank fell by 30k to end at N13.15k per share, while Vita Foam slumped by 14k to close at N2.85k per share.
On the flip side, Seplat recorded the biggest price appreciation today with N25 added to its share value to settle at N785 per share.
Unilever followed with N5.50k gained to close at N59.60k per share, and Flour Mills rose by N1.55k to end at N34.60k per share.
Dangote Sugar increased by N1.5k to finish at N22.50k per share, while NASCON went up by 70k to close at N24.50k per share.
Business Post reports that the volume and value of transactions on the floor of the stock exchange on Tuesday increased by 76.75 percent and 3.80 percent respectively.
A total of 445.5 million equities exchanged hands today in 5,078 deals worth N6 billion compared with 252 million shares traded yesterday in 4,270 deals valued at N5.8 billion.
Furthermore, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 95.84 points to close at 43,609.77 points, while the market capitalisation advanced by N34.4 billion to finish at N15.667 trillion.
As investors look forward to release of more earnings this month, Business Post expects the market to remain volatile in the near term as investors continue to take positions.
