Stock Market Closes Week Bullish as Index Rises 0.04%

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Transactions on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) finished on Friday for the week on a positive note, owing to investors’ sustained buying interest in blue-chip equities.

At the close of trading activities today, the Nigerian equity market benchmark index pointed north, with the All-Share Index (ASI) growing by 0.04 percent or 12.72 points to close at 33,810.56, while the market capitalisation added N4.4 billion to settle at N11.7 trillion.

However, Business Post reports that despite the slight gain by the market on Friday, investors’ sentiment stayed negative as market closed with 25 advancers in contrast to 31 decliners, though the YTD return rose to 25.81 percent.

The closing figures showed Nestle emerged the biggest gainer with N7 growth to close at N907 per share and was closely followed by Presco, which improved by N3.44k to finish at N72.33k per share.

Okomu Oil added N3.34k to end at N70.18k per share, Ecobank appreciated by N1.33k to close at N14.33k per share, while 7up grew by N1.20k to finish at N93 per share.

Conversely, Total Plc declined by N11.50k, the biggest today, to settle at N271 per share, while Beta Glass dropped N2.74k to end at N52.17k per share.

International Breweries shed N1.90k to close at N26.5k per share, Mobil fell by 90k to end at N264.10k per share and Oando went down by 32k to finish at N8.36k per share.

At the end of transactions on the floor of the NSE today, investors exchanged a total of 493 million shares in 5,474 deals valued at N6.22 billion.

On the activity chart, LASACO traded the highest volume of shares, transacting 87 million units worth N43.5 million.

Zenith Bank came second with 73.7 million shares traded at N1.7 billion, while Access Bank exchanged 64 million units valued at N634 million.

Furthermore, Transcorp sold 59.6 million shares worth N112.5 million and GTBank transacted 36.8 million units at N1.3 billion.