The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited sustained its positive run on Friday with a 0.75 per cent appreciation driven by strong appetite for domestic equities.
It was observed yesterday that investors were mainly interest in cherry-picking stocks with sound fundamentals across the key sectors of the market, especially MTN, Dangote Cement, and BUA Cement, though they did not lead the gainers’ chart.
The highest price gainer was Aso Savings, which further improved its value by 10.00 per cent to sell for 66 Kobo, Ikeja Hotel appreciated by 7.89 per cent to N20.50, Regency Alliance grew by 7.44 per cent to N1.30, Caverton jumped by 7.08 per cent to N6.50, and NEM Insurance soared by 6.76 per cent to N30.00.
On the flip side, Union Dicon lost 9.09 per cent to sell for N8.00, Neimeth weakened by 6.67 per cent to N5.60, Cornerstone Insurance slumped by 5.61 per cent to N6.23, Haldane McCall shed 4.84 per cent to N4.13, and International Energy Insurance slipped by 4.48 per cent to N2.77.
Business Post reports that there were 34 price gainers and 25 price losers during the session, indicating a positive market breadth index and strong investor sentiment.
The energy space appreciated by 2.96 per cent on the last trading session of this week, the commodity index improved by 1.48 per cent, the industrial goods sector rose by 1.18 per cent, the insurance counter expanded by 1.01 per cent, and the consumer goods industry increased by 0.95 per cent, while the banking sector lost 0.56 per cent due to profit-taking.
When the closing gong was struck to signal an end to trading for the day, the All-Share Index (ASI) moved up by 1,155.15 points to 155,645.05 points from 154,489.90 points and the market capitalisation was up by N734 billion to N98.793 trillion from N98.059 trillion.
Yesterday, a total of 1.2 billion stocks worth N31.5 billion were transacted in 29,989 deals compared with the 926.9 million stocks valued at N27.0 billion traded in 30,703 deals a day earlier, representing a decline of 2.33 per cent in the number of deals and a rise in the trading volume and value by 29.46 per cent and 16.67 per cent apiece.
A significant bulk trading was witnessed around Fidelity Bank on Friday. It led the activity chart with 820.9 million shares sold for N16.1 billion.
Sovereign Trust Insurance traded 45.5 million equities worth N177.0 million, Tantalizers exchanged 32.7 million stocks for N72.1 million, Access Holdings transacted 23.8 million shares valued at N593.4 million, and GTCO sold 19.2 million equities worth N1.8 billion.