Nigeria Content Online

Investors at the
Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) recorded additional gains on the value of
their equities on Wednesday, in spite of the nationwide strike that
affected many investments.

The Exchange market
capitalisation closed yesterday at N8.116 trillion, after opening the
day at N8.105 trillion, reflecting 0.13 percent upturn or N11 billion
gains. Meanwhile, about N209 billion had been gained on Tuesday,
following investors’ interest in some blue chip stocks.

The NSE All-Share
Index also appreciated on Wednesday by 0.13 percent or a gain of 32.84
points on the previous day’s figures of 25,383.37 basis units, to close
at 25,416.21 units.

Transaction volume
on the Exchange yesterday grew by 6.18 percent to close at 557.25
million units exchanged in 5,986 deals, as against a growth of 26.59
percent recorded the previous trading, to close at 524.83 million units
exchanged in 7,340 deals.

‘No selling pressure’

Olugbenga Emmanuel,
a finance analyst at WealthZone Company, a portfolio management firm,
said the market closed on a positive note because “there was no selling
pressure by investors,” a sign he called “‘the gradual return of
investors’ confidence in bourse.”

Meanwhile, a
stockbroker, who would not like to be mentioned, said the labour strike
would have stopped trading activities and subsequently affected stock
performance if some traders did not summon their staff to ignore the
industrial action.

“Initially, we
thought there won’t be trading because some staff refused to show up
early at work. But things got back to normal before the actual trading
period started,” he said.

More gainers

The number of
gainers at the close of trading session on Wednesday closed higher at
48 stocks, as against the 43 gainers recorded the previous day, while
losers closed at 21, compared with the 20 losers recorded on Tuesday.

Nigerian Breweries
and Lafarge Wapco topped the price gainers’ table with an increase of
N1.97 and N1.49 on their initial prices of N77.00 and N40.51 per share,
respectively. Cadbury and Oando followed in the chart with an increase
of N1.00 each, to close at N28.00 and N65.50 per share.

On the losers’
side, Dangote Cement and Conoil led the price losers’ chart with a loss
of N6.72 and N2.04, from their opening prices of N134.66 and N40.98 per
share. Flour Mills Nigeria and African Petroleum followed with 98 kobo
and 94 kobo losses respectively, to close at N70.02 and N24.00 per
share.

Active subsector

The banking
subsector led the most active subsectors’ chart with 300.927 million
volumes of shares, valued at over N2.395 billion.

The volume recorded
in the subsector was driven by transaction in the shares of Union Bank,
Zenith Bank, First Bank, United Bank for Africa, and Oceanic Bank.

The total volume of
224.79 million units, valued at N1.96 billion, traded in the shares of
the five stocks accounted for 33.03 percent of the entire market volume.