By Dipo Olowookere
The huge interest in equities in the consumer goods, energy and insurance sectors kept the momentum positive at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday.
The local stock market closed bullish yesterday after recording gains for the second straight day, closing at 0.17 percent to reduce the year-to-date loss to 16.15 percent.
It was observed that the bargain hunting by investors on stocks in the three sectors left the market breadth positive yesterday with 18 price gainers and 13 price losers.
This empowered the All-Share Index (ASI) by 44.58 points to rise to 26,355.35 points from 26,310.77 points and boosted the market capitalisation by N21.7 billion to N12.830 trillion from N12.808 trillion.
However, there were selloffs in banking space as well as the industrial goods sector. The banking index depreciated yesterday by 0.64 percent, while the industrial goods index went down by 0.05 percent.
Business Post reports that the activity level was strong with the volume of shares traded by investors rising by 121.74 percent to 347.8 million from 156.9 million and the value of the transactions increasing by 275.30 percent to N6.8 billion from N1.8 billion. However, the number of deals executed by traders reduced by 10.75 percent to 2,756 deals from 3,088 deals.
Zenith Bank was the most active stock at the market on Thursday, closing with a turnover of 103.7 million shares sold for N1.8 billion, while FCMB followed with 85.1 million units worth N136.6 million.
GTBank exchanged 39.2 million equities worth N980.5 million, UBA transacted 21.7 million shares for N125.6 million, while MTN Nigeria traded 21.3 million equities valued at N2.7 billion.
On the price movement chart, Seplat claimed the most lucrative spot on the price gainers’ table after adding N48 to its share value to close for the day at N565 per share.
Nigerian Breweries gained N3.75 to finish at N50 per unit, Dangote Cement rose by 40 kobo for the second successive day to close at N149.40 per unit, Flour Mills appreciated by 20 kobo to end at N14.20 per share, while University Press improved by 9 kobo to settle at N1.30 per unit.
On the flip side, MTN Nigeria suffered the highest price decline, losing N1 of its share price to close on top of the losers’ chart at N126 per share.
GTBank went down by 50 kobo to close at N24.90 per share, Oando declined by 25 kobo to finish at N3.11 per unit, Lafarge Africa depreciated by 10 kobo to trade at N13.30 per share, while Union Bank shed 5 kobo to close at N7 per share.
