By Dipo Olowookere
The All Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) grew on Friday by 0.12 per cent or 29.8 points to settle at 24,306.36 points as against Thursday’s 24,276.56 points.
This was as a result of the gains printed by 13 equities, mostly large-cap stocks, which overshadowed the losses reported by nine shares.
The rise in the share prices of the 13 stocks increased the market capitalisation of the exchange by N16 billion to N12.680 trillion from N12.664 trillion.
At the last trading day for the week, MTN Nigeria led the gainers’ log with a price appreciation of N1.10 to settle at N116.10 per share.
Vitafoam grew by 26 kobo to close at N5.33 per unit, International Breweries grew by 25 kobo to settle at N3.85 per share, GlaxoSmithKline gained 20 kobo to sell at N4.80 per unit, while PZ Cussons appreciated by 15 kobo to trade at N4.50 per unit.
On the other side, GTBank was the worst-performing stock, losing 30 kobo of its share value to finish at N22.45 per share.
UBA depreciated by 15 kobo to sell at N6.25 per share, while the trio of FBN Holdings, ABC Transport and Zenith Bank lost 5 kobo each to quote at N5.20 per share, 51 kobo per share and N16.70 per share respectively.
Business Post reports that only the consumer goods sector appreciated yesterday, growing by 0.56 per cent, while both the industrial goods and oil/gas indices closed flat, with the banking counter going down by 0.68 per cent and the insurance space losing 0.63 per cent.
The activity chart was in red on Friday with the trading volume, value and number of deals crashing by 31.47 per cent, 63.58 per cent and 20.58 per cent respectively.
A total of 131.6 million shares worth N899.4 million were transacted in 3,044 deals as against the previous day’s 192.1 million stocks valued at N2.5 billion traded in 3,833 deals.
Sterling Bank was the most traded equity at the market during the session, transacting 17.7 million shares valued at N22.6 million.
Zenith Bank sold 13.2 million stocks worth N220.5 million, UBA exchanged 7.5 million equities for N47.1 million, Transcorp transacted 7.4 million shares worth N4.7 million, while Fidelity Bank traded 6.2 million for N11.1 million.
