Chinwendu Obienyi
Transactions at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) resumed on a bullish note Monday as the volume of stocks traded rose by 20.4 per cent at the close of trading.
Analysis showed that investors garnered N42 billion with market capitalisation closing at N15.041 trillion from an opening value of N15 trillion.
The upturn was attributed to gains in the shares of Dangote Cement, ETI and GT Bank and as a result, the All Share Index (ASI) rose by 0.28 per cent to close at 28,777.96 points while Year-to-date (Ytd) return improved to -7.2 per cent.
Further analysis of the market’s performance, activity level strengthened on the domestic bourse as the volume and value of stocks traded advanced by 20.4 and 25.6 per cent to 340.80 million units and N5.56 billion respectively, exchanged in 4,235 deals.
Investors’ appetite for stocks increased as 27 equities appreciated in value while 15 others depreciated. Custodian topped the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at N5.50 per share, NPF Microfinance Bank followed with 9.70 per cent to close at N1.47, Etranzact increased by 7.73 per cent to close at N1.95, ETI garnered 7.69 per cent to close at N4.90 while Lasaco gained 7.69 per cent to close at 0.28 kobo.
On the other hand, Morison led the laggards with 10 per cent to close at 0.52 kobo per share. Chip Plc was next with 8.82 per cent to close at 0.31 kobo, Nascon lost 8.39 per cent to close at N13.10, Wapic fell by 7.50 per cent to close at 0.37 kobo while Livestock decreased by 7.46 per cent to close at 0.62 kobo.
The most traded stocks by volume were GT Bank (56.8 million units), Zenith Bank (47.8 million units) and WAPIC (40.0 million units) while GT Bank (N1.7 billion), Dangote Cement (N1.0 billion) and Zenith Bank (N1 billion) led by value.