Nigeria Equity Market Sustains Growth

Transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange  (NSE) on Tuesday for the second consecutive day sustained a positive trend with the market indicators appreciating further by 0.28 per cent.

The report says that Mobil Oil led the gainers’ table, growing by N15.99 to close at N340 per share.

7UP Bottling came second with a gain of N1.05 to close at N95, while Ashaka Cement appreciated by 92k to close at N9.95 per share.

Stanbic IBTC inched 82k to close at N22.31 and Lafarge Africa garnered 79k to close at N51.50 per share.

Consequently, the All-Share Index rose by 71.82 points or 0.28 per cent to close at 25,818.87 compared with 25,747.05 posted on Monday.

Also, the market capitalisation inched N25 billion or 0.28 per cent to close at N8.933 trillion in contrast with N8.908 trillion achieved on Monday.

Mr Tunde Jeariogbe, a market analyst attributed the sustained growth to investors positive reactions to first quarter earnings reports released by some companies.

On the other hand, Nigerian Breweries recorded the highest loss for the day, dropping by 50k to close at N123 per share.

Forte Oil trailed with a loss of 20k to close at N44.80 and Zenith International Bank lost 19k to close at N14.61 per share.

Champion Breweries dipped 12k to close at N2.35 and UACN declined by 7k to close at N14.43 per share.

FCMB Group emerged the most traded, accounting16.42 million shares worth N16.45 million.

NEM Insurance followed with 15.75 million shares valued at N13.06 million and Transcorp traded 12.54 million shares worth N11.68 million.

Zenith International Bank sold 9.04 million shares valued at N132.97 million, while UACN sold 8.70 million shares valued at N126.16 million.

In all, NAN reports that volume of shares transacted closed lower as investors bought and sold 127.43 million shares worth N909. 33 million exchanged in 3,176 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 211.76 million shares valued at N1.41 billion sold in 3,054 deals on Monday.