NGX reverses bearish momentum, registers N74bn gain
By Chukwuma Umeorah
After three consecutive days of bull’s dominance, the Nigerian equities market on Thursday reversed its negative trend recording a N74 billion gain, its first closure in the positive territory for the week.
The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) witnessed a commendable uptick of 0.13 per cent or 130.66 basis points from the previous day’s lows of 104,256.81 points to 104,387.47 basis points. Likewise the market capitalization of all listed equities advanced to N59.021 trillion from an opening value of N58.947 trillion. Thus, the Year-to-Date gain stood at 39.60 per cent.
Yesterday’s upward movement was primarily attributed to proactive investor participation, particularly in the acquisition of shares in companies such as Transcorp, Zenith Bank, Guiness, GTCO, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa and 16 other stocks. At the end of Thursday’s trading session on the local bourse, a total of 336.82 billion unit of shares with corresponding market value of N9.28 billion were successfully exchanged in 8,790 deals. This data when compared with the previous trading day reflects a 13 per cent improvement in volume, a 36 per cent improvement in turnover, and a 7 per cent improvement in deals.
The banking stocks dominated the day’s trading activities (when measured in volume) as UBA traded 63.88 million units of shares value at N1.72 billion, followed by Accesscorp which exchanged 32 million units of shares with corresponding market value of N750.03 million while Zenithbank dealt 21.77 million shares worth N846.99 million.
Despite closing in the green zone, market breadth remained negative with 29 stocks depreciating in value while 22 gained.
Leading the gainers table was JULI adding 10 per cent in value closing at N7.15 per share. They were followed by Transcorp which added 9.96 per cent and closed the day’s trade at N14.90 while Intenegins gained 9.66 per cent closing at N1.59 per share.
On the negative side, DEAP CAPITAL MANAGEMENT & TRUST PLC was the worst performing stock depreciating 10 per cent in value to close at N0.63 per share, followed by TOURIST COMPANY OF NIGERIA PLC which shed 9.86 per cent and closed at N2.56 per share while CWG lost 9.09 per cent and closed the day at N5.50 per share.
