By Dipo Olowookere
The first trading session in the month of December 2020 started on a positive note on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
At the market on Tuesday, the upward trend was sustained with a 0.30 per cent growth, which pushed the year-to-date return higher to 30.94 per cent, though the negative sentiment persisted as there were more price losers (21) than the price gainers (16).
However, this did not affect the All-Share Index (ASI), which rose by 105.48 points to 35,147.62 points from 35,042.14 points. It also did not reduce the market capitalisation, which was up by N55 billion to settle at N18.365 trillion in contrast to N18.310 trillion it ended on Monday.
Business Post observed that the growth witnessed yesterday at the stock market was influenced mainly by the buying pressure on banking stocks and this led to the 2.27 per cent gained by its index. The energy index also appreciated during the session by 0.19 per cent, while the industrial goods sector closed flat.
The laggards of the five sub-sectors of the market on Tuesday were the insurance sector, which lost 1.16 per cent and the consumer goods index, which went down by 0.06 per cent.
At the close of transactions, GTBank was the highest price gainer as a result of the N1.80 it garnered to settle at N35 per share.
Seplat gained N1.60 to finish at N402.30 per unit, Zenith Bank grew by 40 kobo to sell for N24.40 per share, Caverton appreciated by 17 kobo to close at N1.89 per unit, while Cutix rose by 15 kobo to settle at N1.68 per share.
However, Guinness Nigeria closed the session as the heaviest price loser after its share price went down by 55 kobo to trade at N18.35 per unit.
Flour Mills depreciated by 25 kobo to close at N27.60 per share, MTN Nigeria declined by 20 kobo to sell at N155 per unit, FCMB depleted by 12 kobo to N3.21 per share, while UBA depreciated by 10 kobo to N8.20 per unit.
Despite the gains recorded on Tuesday, the level of activity was weak as only 308.2 million stocks worth N3.4 billion exchanged hands in 4,515 deals as against the 415.5 million equities worth N4.9 billion traded in 5,267 deals on Monday.
This indicated that the trading volume went down by 25.83 per cent, the trading value declined by 30.53 per cent and the number of deals depreciated by 14.28 per cent.
Data obtained from the exchanged showed that Access Bank was the most traded stock by volume on Tuesday for the sale of 43.4 million units of its securities worth N376.5 million.
FBN Holdings transacted 31.9 million shares valued at N229.8 million, Mutual Benefits traded 24.4 million equities for N5.2 million, UBA transacted 24.1 million shares worth N200.2 million, while GTBank exchanged 24.1 million stocks valued at N859.2 million.
