Local Stock Market Opens Week With N144bn Gain

The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited opened this week’s trading activities with a N144 billion gain.

The growth came after a hard-fought battle between the bulls and the bears, which wanted to take control of Customs Street during the session.

The market finished the day with 33 price losers and 32 price gainers, indicating a negative market breadth index and a slightly weak investor sentiment.

This was mainly due to profit-taking in the banking space, which closed lower by 0.83 per cent.

The positive run was sustained due to the bargain-hunting in the other key sectors, with the insurance index rising by 0.23 per cent, the industrial goods space growing by 0.03 per cent, the consumer goods counter expanding by 0.02 per cent, and the energy sector unchanged.

Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 264.89 points to 65,268.28 points from 65,003.39 points, and the market capitalisation improved by N144 billion to N35.539 trillion from N35.395 trillion.

FTN Cocoa, GlaxoSmithKline, Lasaco Assurance and NASCON appreciated by 10.00 per cent each on Monday to N2.20, N8.25, N1.76, and N31.90 apiece as Stanbic IBTC grew by 9.97 per cent to N68.95.

But Ikeja Hotel shed 10.00 per cent to close at N2.70, Multiverse depreciated by 9.97 per cent to N3.34, Ellah Lakes dropped 9.86 per cent to close at N3.93, Abbey Mortgage Bank lost 9.82 per cent to trade at N1.01, and Thomas Wyatt slumped by 9.55 per cent to quote at N1.42.

The activity chart was mixed during the session after the value of transactions went down by 9.79 per cent, and the volume of trades and the number of deals went up by 7.88 per cent and 9.57 per cent, respectively.

Investors traded 831.5 million stocks valued at N12.9 billion in 9,768 deals yesterday compared with the 770.8 million stocks worth N14.3 billion traded in 8,915 deals last Friday.