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Investors
at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday recorded additional
gains on their equities’ value, as market closed trading on a positive
note.

The Exchange market
capitalisation closed yesterday at N 7.912 trillion after opening the
day at N 7.908 trillion, reflecting 0.05 percent upturn or over N4
billion gains. The market had gained about N21 billion at the close of
trading session on Wednesday.

The NSE sectoral
indexes maintained previous positive outlook as NSE-30, which measures
the performance of blue chips in the market, gained by 0.28 percent;
the NSE Food & Beverages gained the highest point by 0.52 percent;
the Banking moved up by 0.39 percent; and the Oil & Gas appreciated
by 0.19 percent, while the NSE Insurance, the only loser, closed with
2.07 percent loss.

Commenting on
Thursday’s market performance, analysts at Proshare Nigeria, an
investment advisory firm, said the early session witnessed stocks of
Building Materials, Food & Beverages, Industrial & Domestic
Products and Agriculture sectors dictating the pace in price
appreciation.

“The moderate
buying activities in Food & Beverages, Maritime, Construction, and
Agriculture sectors with slight bargain towards blue chips despite much
selling across the sectors, took the market higher with modest gain,
closing year-to-date All-Share Index performance higher at 18.94
percent,” they said.

High losers

At the end of
trading, the number of gainers closed at 27 stocks; same position with
the 27 gainers recorded previous session while losers closed higher at
31 stocks when compared with the 24 losers recorded on Wednesday.

Presco Nigeria and
Costain West Africa topped the price gainers’ table with an increase of
4.98 percent each on their opening prices of N6.22 and N6.43 per share
respectively. IHS and Vitafoam followed in the chart with an increase
of 4.84 percent and 4.79 percent, to close at N2.60 and N6.35 per share.

On the losers’
side, Wema Bank and C & I Leasing led the price losers’ chart with
a decline of 5 percent and 4.97 percent, to close at N1.33 and N1.53
per share. Evans Medical and John Holt followed with a decline of 4.96
percent each on their initial prices of N1.21 and N9.28 per share.

Active subsector

The Banking
subsector led the market transaction volume on Thursday with 111.04
million units valued at N1.04 billion, as against the 138.29 million
units valued at N1.22 billion recorded on Wednesday.

The volume recorded
in the subsector was driven by transaction in the shares of Zenith
Bank, First Bank, Skye Bank, Oceanic Bank, and Diamond Bank. The total
volume of 64.54 million units valued at N715.82 million traded in the
shares of the five stocks accounted for 30.62 percent of the entire
market volume.