Chinwendu Obienyi
Transaction proceedings on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), yesterday, ended with a flattish 0.03 per cent in the All-Share Index (ASI), which closed at 32,152.90 points following fresh rounds of bargain hunting in banking stocks by short-term investors.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses dipped to 0.97 and 15.93 per cent, respectively while market capitalisation recovered N4 billion from N11.734 trillion to close at N11.738 trillion.
Returns in the Banking (+1.06 per cent) index turned positive, owing to renewed interest in Stanbic IBTC (+2.13 per cent) and Zenith Bank (+1.04 per cent) shares. The Industrial Goods (+1.87 per cent) index also closed positive, following the 8.67 per cent gain in WAPCO shares.
READ ALSO FG borrows $495m from W’ Bank for irrigation transformation
On the flip side, the Insurance (-2.23 per cent), Consumer Goods (-0.33 per cent), and Oil & Gas (-0.26 per cent) indices posted losses owing to negative returns in the shares of Mansard (-8.95 per cent), Honeywell (-7.41 per cent), and Forte Oil (-6.15 per cent), respectively.
Market breadth turned negative with 26 losers and 16 gainers. Cileasing topped the losers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at N2.52 per share, Lasaco was next with a decline of 10 per cent to close at 0.27 kobo, Julius Berger decreased by 9.92 per cent to close at N21.35, Ikeja Hotel fell by 9.69 per cent to close at N2.05, while Diamond Bank lost 9.48 per cent to close at N1.05.
On the other hand, Unity Bank topped the gainers’ chart with a 9.86 per cent gain to close at 0.78 kobo. Glaxosmithkline followed with 9.55 per cent to close at N12.05, Meyer garnered 9.09 per cent to close at 0.60 kobo, Mutual Benefits increased by 8.70 per cent to close at 0.25 kobo while Wapco rose by 8.67 per cent to close at N16.30 per share.
On the activity chart, Ikeja Hotel was the toast of investors, selling over 279.10 million shares valued at N572.16 million. FBN Holdings traded 19.54 million shares valued at N145.58 million while Diamond Bank transacted 15.66 million shares worth N16.548 million.
At the close of trading, the total volume of trades spiked by 181.30 per cent to 399.76 million units, valued at N2.24 billion (+44.10 per cent), and exchanged in 2,880 deals.