The bulls maintained their grip on the Nigerian equities market yesterday as the overall capitalization crossed N50 trillion, while the All-Share Index breached the psychological 91,000 mark.
This notable upswing was attributed to robust investor interest spanning various stocks within the Industrial, Oil & Gas, and Consumer Goods indexes.
The All-Share Index (ASI) gained 1,833.72 points, representing a gain of 2.04 per cent to close at 91,896.97 points. Also, market capitalisation rose by N1.006 trillion to close at N50.290 trillion.
The upturn was driven by price appreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks amongst which are; Dangote Cement, BUA Cement, MRS Oil Nigeria, Conoil and Okomu Oil.
However, as measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative, as 42 tickers lost relative to 33 gainers. Conoil, Eterna, John Holt, NEM Insurance and Unity Bank emerged the highest price gainer of 10 per cent each to close at N112.20, N20.90, N2.53, N8.25 and N3.30 respectively, per share.
PZ Cussons Nigeria and May & Baker Nigeria followed with a gain of 9.96 per cent each to close at N39.20 and N7.51 respectively, while McNichols advanced by 9.94 per cent to close at N1.77, per share.
On the other hand, Ikeja Hotel led others on the losers’ chart with 9.79 per cent to close at N8.11, per share. Royal Exchange followed with a decline of 9.78 per cent to close at 83 kobo, while Mutual Benefits Assurance shed 9.57 per cent to close at 85 kobo, per share.
Linkage Assurance lost 9.40 per cent to close at N1.35, while Japaul Gold and Ventures depreciated by 9.33 per cent to close at N2.43, per share.
The total volume traded declined by 12.2 per cent to 1.14 billion units, valued at N19.29 billion, and exchanged in 17,804 deals. Transactions in the shares of Transnational Corporation (Transcorp) led the activity with 156.621 million shares worth N2.961 billion. Universal Insurance followed with 114.549 million shares valued at N55.577 million, while Veritas Kapital Assurance traded 69.413 million shares valued at N47.326 million.
Jaiz Bank traded 65.865 million shares worth N243.888 million, while Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) traded 63.443 million shares worth N2.884 billion.
Also, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria yesterday announced it has received the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval of its scheme arrangement (earlier sanctioned by the Federal High Court on December 5, 2023).
Accordingly, the company is set to apply to delist its shares from trading on the NGX, in line with its strategic intent to cease commercialisation of its business in Nigeria through local operating companies.
