By Dipo Olowookere
Transactions closed positive on Customs Street on Friday as a result of gains posted by Nestle Nigeria and 16 other equities, which lured the bulls back to the market to cut short the reigns of the bears.
Business Post reports that the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) finished 0.19 percent higher yesterday on the impact of renewed bargain hunting by investors.
This increased the All-Share Index (ASI) by 52.54 points to settle at 27,698.69 points and fortified the market capitalisation by N25.6 billion to finish at N13.484 trillion.
Nestle Nigeria led the 17 stocks on the gainers’ chart at the trading session with a price appreciation of N10 to close at N1210.10k per share, with Stanbic IBTC trailing with a gain of N2.90k to end at N42.85k per unit.
Nigerian Breweries garnered 55 kobo to close at N52.55k per share, Dangote Sugar raked 50 kobo to trade at N11.05k per unit, while Flour Mills mopped up 30 kobo to quote at N14 per share.
On the other side, Cadbury Nigeria claimed the top spot on the 16-member losers’ table on Friday after shedding 70 kobo from its share value to close at N10.95k per unit.
Zenith Bank went down by 30 kobo to settle at N18.70k per share, while the trio of Dangote Flour, GTBank and Lafarge Africa depreciated by 25 kobo each to close at N22.15k, N29 and N15.10k respectively.
The activity level was mixed yesterday with the volume of traded shares going south by 27.65 percent and the value of the trades as well as the number of deals moving north by 253.87 percent and 0.99 percent respectively.
A total of 177.6 million shares worth N5.9 billion were traded in 3,484 deals on Friday against the 245.4 million equities worth N1.7 billion exchanged in 3,450 deals on Thursday.
Nigerian Breweries was the most active stock at the session, closing with a turnover of 28.1 million shares worth N1.5 billion, while GTBank followed with 17.7 million units traded for N512.3 million.
FBN Holdings exchanged 16 million equities valued at N89.5 million, UBA sold 15.2 million shares valued at N93.6 million, while Zenith Bank transacted 14.6 million stocks for N276 million.
At the sectoral level, the consumer goods sector and the energy industry appreciated by 0.90 percent and 0.54 percent respectively, while the banking index, insurance index and the industrial goods index went down by 1.15 percent, 0.53 percent and 0.37 percent respectively.
Adedapo Adesanya