By Dipo Olowookere
The bullish sentiments on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continued on Wednesday, resulting in another growth by 1.90 per cent.
Buying interest in bellwether stocks like MTN Nigeria and others made the All-Share Index (ASI) to spike by 621.26 points to 33,268.36 points from 32,647.10 points.
These equities also increased the market capitalisation yesterday by N325 billion, settling at N17.384 trillion at the close of transactions compared with N17.059 trillion it ended on Tuesday.
Business Post observed that the investors were more interested in banking stocks at the session and from the analysis of the activity chart, shares in the sector dominated.
FBN Holdings was the most traded stocks, transacting 145.1 million units worth N1.1 billion and was trailed by Transcorp, which exchanged 126.3 million units worth N141.2 million.
Zenith Bank traded 60.8 million shares valued at N1.5 billion, UBA transacted 52.9 million stocks for N469.7 million, while Access Bank exchanged 44.1 million shares for N401.0 million.
At the close of business, a total of 858.2 million shares worth N9.1 billion were traded in 8,142 deals yesterday in contrast to the 578.8 million equities worth N7.7 billion transacted in 7,651 deals a day earlier.
This indicated a 48.27 per cent rise in the trading volume, a 17.04 per cent increase in the trading value and a 6.42 per cent growth in the number of deals.
In terms of the performance of the five major sub-sectors of the market, the banking space was the best-performer, rising by 4.07 per cent.
The consumer goods space grew by 2.56 per cent, the energy index appreciated by 1.27 per cent, the insurance sector increased by 1.19 per cent, while the industrial goods counter gained 1.14 per cent.
On the price movement chart, Nigerian Breweries was the highest price gainer, appreciating by N5 to settle at N57.50 per share.
Presco gained N4 to close at N72.50 per unit, MTN Nigeria rose by N3.80 to finish at N160 per share, Guinness Nigeria improved by N1.90 to sell for N20.90 per unit, while NASCON gained N1.50 to settle at N16.95 per share.
The losers’ chart was led by Stanbic IBTC, which lost N2 to close at N46 per share and was followed by C&I Leasing, which depreciated by 20 kobo to N4.10 per unit.
Red Star Express declined by 13 kobo to end at N3.40 per share, Learn Africa dropped 5 kobo to quote at N1 per unit, while Linkage Assurance depleted by 2 kobo to 47 kobo per share.