By Dipo Olowookere
The first trading session of the new week and month ended on a positive note on Monday, June 1, 2020, with an appreciation of 0.19 percent.
This was helped by sustained bargain hunting on stocks from different sectors of the market and this left the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) finishing the session with 28 price gainers and 10 price losers.
Dangote Sugar was the most favoured as it topped the risers’ table with N1.25 added to its share value to settle at N14.15 per unit.
Nigerian Breweries gained 70 kobo to close at N44 per share, GTBank rose by 55 kobo to N24.55 per share, Vitafoam appreciated by 40 kobo to sell at N5.95 per unit, while BUA Cement swallowed 30 kobo to expand to N42.30 per share.
At the other side of the coin, Stanbic IBTC stayed on top of the decliners’ log after losing N3.30 to settle for the day at N32.50 per share.
Flour Mills depreciated by N1 to sell at N20 per unit, Fidson shed 33 kobo to trade at N3.07 per share, Axa Mansard declined by 18 kobo to N1.85 per unit, while Caverton fell by 8 kobo to N2.50 per share.
Apart from the insurance sector, which lost 0.93 percent and the energy counter, which closed flat, every other sector closed positive.
The banking index appreciated by 1.28 percent, the consumer goods counter improved by 1.13 percent, while the industrial goods sector rose by 0.54 percent.
The main performance indicator, the All-Share Index (ASI), appreciated yesterday by 48.33 points to 25,316.15 points from 25,267.82 points. On its part, the market capitalisation increased by N26 billion to N13.194 trillion from N13.168 trillion.
The number of Nigerian stocks traded by market participants on Monday decreased by 22.21 percent to 253.3 million from 325.6 million of the previous session.
Also, the value of trades depreciated by 40.87 percent to N2.7 billion from N4.5 billion, while the number of deals declined by 15.44 percent to 4,775 deals from 5,647 deals.
From observation, FBN Holdings was the most active stock at the exchange yesterday as the lender traded 41.0 million units of its stocks for N221.8 million.
GTBank transacted 36.2 million shares worth N887.5 million, Japaul Oil exchanged 25.4 million equities valued at N5.5 million, Zenith Bank transacted 21.6 million shares for N369.9 million, while Regency Alliance traded 20.5 million stocks for N4.1 million.
Adedapo Adesanya