Unlisted Stocks Rally as Investors Shop for Friesland, NDEP

By Adedapo Adesanya

FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc and Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) were the toast of investors at the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange on Friday, May 6, extending the stay of the bulls by 0.38 per cent at the close of transactions.

This meant that for all the three trading sessions this week, the unlisted securities market closed in the green territory. The market did not operate on the first two days of this week as a result of the public holidays declared by the federal government on Monday and Tuesday for Workers’ Day and Eid Mubarak.

At the close of business yesterday, the total value of unlisted stocks in Nigeria stood at N923.88 billion after adding N3.5 billion to the previous value of N920.38 billion.

In the same vein, the NASD Unlisted Securities Index (NSI) improved by 2.66 points to end the day at 702.64 points as against the 699.98 points it recorded on Thursday.

Business Post reports that shares of Friesland improved by N9.02 or 8.2 per cent on Friday to close at N110.00 per unit in contrast to the previous day’s N100.98 per unit, while equities of NDEP Plc rose by N3 or 1.5 per cent to N203.00 per share from N200.00 per share.

However, shares of Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc depreciated during the session by N1.17 or 7.4 per cent to settle at N15.83 per unit compared with Thursday’s N17.00 per unit.

Yesterday, the volume of securities traded by investors reduced by 81.3 per cent to 49,000 units from 262,650 units, the value of stocks transacted went down by 15.3 per cent to N5.1 million from N6.1 million and the number of trades remained unchanged at nine deals.

AG Mortgage Bank Plc remained the most traded stock by volume on a year-to-date basis with 2.3 billion units worth N1.2 billion, followed by CSCS Plc with 661.2 million units valued at N13.9 billion, and Food Concepts Plc with 69.0 million units worth N56.0 million.

Also, CSCS Plc maintained its position as the most traded stock by value on a year-to-date basis with 661.2 million units worth N13.9 billion, trailed by AG Mortgage Bank Plc with 2.3 billion units valued at N1.2 billion, and Friesland with 7.6 million units valued at N1.0 billion.