Nigeria Content Online

Mixed performances have continued to characterise trading
activities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as market indicators maintained
unsteady movements.

The NSE market capitalisation and the All-Share Index, the two
market measuring parameters, which depreciated by 0.16 percent at the close of
trading on Monday, went up by 0.17 percent yesterday after appreciating by 0.68
percent on Tuesday.

Stockbrokers at GTI Capital, a stock broking firm, said the mix
trading performances could be attributed to the activities of profit takers in
the market.

They said the market opened the new week on a negative note
despite the increased activities on the floor of exchange. “Early hours of
trade revealed moderate activities savoured with investors willingness to
consolidate positions on some handful of fundamental stocks. However, selling
pressure emerged toward the closing hours pushing indicators down,” they
explained.

Meanwhile, they said recent gains on some blue chip stocks have
been driving the positive performance in the market.

Market rebounds

The market capitalisation of the 194 first-tier equities closed
yesterday at N8.140 trillion after opening the day at N8.126 trillion,
reflecting N14 billion gains. About N55 billion was gained on Tuesday after the
market lost N13 billion the preceding day. The All-Share Index gained 45.24
units yesterday on the previous day’s figures of 25,432.93 basis points, to
close at 25,478.17.

At the end of Wednesday’s trading, the number of gainers closed
higher at 361 compared with the 32 recorded on Tuesday, while losers also
closed higher at 22 against the 19 recorded the previous trading day.

Costain West Africa topped the gainers chart for the day with
4.97 percent price appreciation, while Northern Nigeria Flour Mills topped the
losers chart with 4.98 percent depreciation.

Guinness Nigeria yesterday released its unaudited results for
the third quarter ended March 31 2011. The financial results show a turnover of
N89.801 billion as against N80.576 billion in the comparable period of 2010.
Profit after tax stood at N17.562 billion compared with profit after tax
ofN13.754 billion in 2010.

Also, the board of directors of Julius Berger yesterday proposed
a dividend of N2 per share to its shareholders.

Exchange commission

In the meantime, Daisy Ekineh, the executive commissioner in
charge of operations at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said
recently that some of SEC’s main objectives to improve market activities this
year include encouraging companies to stay listed in the market by “continuing
to introduce best practices in periodic disclosure, securities issuance, and
merger and acquisition mandatory takeovers.”

Mrs Ekineh said the commission is “understanding and addressing
concerns of listed companies without undermining disclosure standards and
market integrity.” She said that SEC is working at promoting new products in
the market while the commission “improves on its process of electronic filing
of returns and offer documents.”

Meanwhile, the Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria,
through its chairman, Rashed Yussuff, has expressed readiness to cooperate with
the new management of the NSE to reposition the market while they charged the
new management team to evolve policies that will benefit the market operators.

The assurance was given when Adeolu Bajomo, the newly appointed executive
director in charge of the NSE’s Market Operations and Information Technology,
was introduced to the stockbrokers on the floor of the exchange by Oscar
Onyema, the chief executive officer of the exchange.