By Chinenye Anuforo
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Shares Index appreciated 0.6 per cent to close at 24,964.63 points Thursday it ended trading session in the green zone.
Market capitalisation also improved N53.4 billion to close at N8.6 trillion. Statistics from the NSE show that the uptrend was on the back of gains in bellwether equities across sectors, including Dangote Cement, Nigerian Breweries, GT Bank and Total.
Market activity strengthened however as volume and value traded grew 18.7 per cent and 48 per cent respectively to settle at 338.3 million shares valued at N2 billion. The Banking and Consumer Goods indices appreciated 1.6 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively on the back of bargain hunting activities in NB and price appreciation in Floor Mills, GT Bank, Access Bank and Wema Bank. The insurance index gained a marginal 7bps. On the flip side, the industrial goods index was dragged into the red zone by a 5 per cent decline in WAPCO, which offset a 1.5 per cent gain of Dangote Cement.
In another development, a member of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers Limited, has launched an online stockbroking service on the Nigerian Stock Exchange with real-time processing capacity.
The Stanbic IBTC e-Trade provides investors with real-time market information as well as enabling them give real-time mandates to buy or sell shares on the NSE.
Among its uptakes, the platform is expected to help the market regain the confidence of investors by availing them of insight required to act prudently on new investment opportunities in the marketplace via a secure and robust technologically-driven platform.
Chief Executive, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Sola David-Borha, said the group is committed to helping deepen the Nigerian capital market by making available to the investing public information, initiatives and strategies that could help them have superior information about developments in both the local and global markets.
She stated: “In introducing the new platform, the overarching goal is to identify both opportunities and threats in the global marketplace, which is made available to investors in real-time to enable them respond as quickly as possible. Our focus is on attracting investment to the Nigerian economy. The Stanbic IBTC e-Trade Platform is targeted at all retail investors.”
Enumerating the benefits of the platform, Chief Executive, Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers Limited, Titi Ogungbesan, stated that with reliable and timely data, decision making is faster and investors are better able to structure their activities for efficiency, while tapping into opportunities, which will positively impact both their portfolios and returns.
Ogungbesan, who said there is no better time to invest in the Nigerian capital market than now when prices of equities are low and consequently attractive, noted that trading on Stanbic IBTC e-Trade is limited to only NSE for now.
She highlighted other benefits of the Stanbic IBTC e-Trade to include flexible online trading environment anywhere, 24-hour access to ones brokerage account, access to live market data from NSE for instant investment decision, convenience, transparency and control over investment. Others are instant email notification on transactions, automated contract note and trade notification delivery system.