By Dipo Olowookere
Trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed flat on Wednesday despite the poor performance of some financial stocks.
At the midweek session, the insurance and banking sectors depreciated by 0.64 per cent and 0.03 per cent respectively. However, the oil/gas index improved by 0.04 per cent, while the consumer goods and industrial goods counters finished flat respectively.
By the time transactions were wrapped up yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) finished at 24,173.53 points as against the previous day’s 24,174.45 points, while the market capitalisation remained at N12.610 trillion.
Despite the market closing flat, the trading volume increased by 32.37 per cent to 402.6 million units from N304.2 million.
In the same vein, the trading value rose by 39.34 per cent to N4.6 billion from the previous day’s N3.3 billion, while the number of deals executed by investors depreciated by 7.09 per cent to 3,252 deals from 3,500 deals.
The busiest stock yesterday was UAC Nigeria as investors traded 136.8 million shares of the company valued at N786.7 million.
Nigerian Breweries exchanged 52.6 million stocks worth N1.6 billion, Multiverse Mining and Exploration transacted 50.0 million equities for N10.0 million, Sterling Bank traded 29.2 million shares worth N35.7 million, while FBN Holdings traded 18.4 million equities valued at N91.2 million.
On the price movement chart, GlaxoSmithKline led the losers’ table with a loss of 50 kobo to close at N4.75 per unit.
Africa Prudential lost 17 kobo to quote at N4.01 per share, Caverton went down by 6 kobo to finish at N1.84 per unit, Sterling Bank depreciated by 4 kobo to sell at N1.18 per share, while CHI fell by 4 kobo to sell at 45 kobo per unit.
Conversely, May & Baker finished the session as the highest price gainer, appreciating by 22 kobo to settle at N3 per share.
Eterna grew by 16 kobo to close at N1.96 per unit, Neimeth, Fidson and NPF Microfinance Bank appreciated by 10 kobo each to quote at N1.50 per share, N3 per unit and N1.42 per share respectively.
Adedapo Adesanya