Chinwendu Obienyi
Buying interests in the shares of Dangote Cement, Nestle and MTNN lifted the Nigerian Stock market’s index by 3.12 per cent to leave it at 23,809.31 points at close of trading Tuesday.
This also helped investors gain about N375 billion inat the session after market capitalisation rose to N12.408 trillion while year-to-date (YTD) loss eased to -11.3 per cent.
Furthermore, activity level on the bourse advanced as the volume and value of stocks traded rose by 37.7 and 77.4 per cent to 345.17 million units and N4.25 billion respectively, exchanged in 4,689 deals.
GT Bank topped the activity chart with the sale of 54.28 million shares valued at N1.14 billion. Mutual Benefits traded 41.78 million shares worth N9.02 million while Zenith Bank transacted 40.31 million shares valued at N591 million.
Performance across sectors was bullish as 5 of 6 indices gained. The Banking and Consumer Goods indices led gainers, up 2.4 per cent apiece following price appreciation in Access Bank (+6.6 per cent) and Nestle (+6.0 per cent). Similarly, the AFR-ICT and Industrial Goods indices appreciated by 2.0 and 1.6 per cent respectively on the back of gains in MTNN (+3.5 per cent) and Dangote Cement (+10.0 per cent) and WAPCO (+3.9%).
Also, the Oil & Gas index also gained 0.73 per cent due to sustained buying interest in Oando (+6.8 per cent) while Linkage Assurance (-9.4 per cent) dragged the Insurance index 0.3 per cent lower.
On the price chart, 29 stocks gained while seven others recorded losses. The top gainers were Dangote Cement (+10.0 per cent), Neimeth (+9.3 per cent) and Prestige (+9.1 per cent) while May&Baker (-10.0 per cent), NPF Microfinance Bank (-9.6 per cent) and Linkage Assurance(-9.4 per cent) were top losers.