By Dipo Olowookere
It was another positive trading session on Thursday on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as the market closed 1.01 percent higher, extending the 1.09 percent gains posted in the previous session.
Renewed bargain hunting was witnessed at yesterday’s session, helped to reduce the year-to-date loss to 12.09 percent at the close of transactions.
On Thursday, the All-Share Index (ASI) further increased by 276.72 points to finish at 27,629.66 points, while the market capitalisation jerked up by N135 billion to settle at N13.442 trillion.
However, with the gains posted yesterday, the level of activity depreciated as seen in the volume and value of transactions recorded on the local bourse.
The volume of shares decreased by 25.10 percent to 272.6 million from 364.0 million, while the value of the trades went down by 0.40 percent to N4.50 billion from N4.52 billion.
The trades were dominated by financial stocks with a turnover of 162.7 million units worth N2.4 billion, while equities in the conglomerates sector traded 38.3 million units valued at N67 million.
A further analysis showed that Zenith Bank emerged as the most active stock at the market yesterday with 54.3 million units sold for N977.5 million.
GTBank exchanged 38.2 million worth N1.0 billion, Transcorp traded 32.1 million shares for N34.1 million, Flour Mills traded 20.4 million equities worth N275.7 million, while Ecobank transacted 18.2 million shares valued at N135.0 million.
On the price movement chart, Nestle Nigeria maintained its position as the highest price gainer, appreciating by N20 yesterday to settle at N1220 per share.
MTN Nigeria strengthened its share value by N2 to finish at N138 per unit, Dangote Cement gained N1 to close at N167 per share, Stanbic IBTC appreciated by 70 kobo to end at N35 per share, while Ecobank gained 65 kobo to close at N7.50k per unit.
At the other side, Okomu Oil topped the losers’ chart after depreciating by N4.35k to finish at N40.15k per unit, with MRS Oil following with a N2.05k decline to end at N18.80k per share.
Unilever Nigeria went down by 90 kobo to close at N27 per share, NCR depreciated by 55 kobo to end at N4.95k per unit, while UPL declined by 16 kobo to settle at N1.44k per share.
