Market News
Nigerian stocks scrape little gain after three days in the doldrums - PREMIUM TIMES
NAHCO led gainers, appreciating by 10 per cent to close at N3.52.
Ronald Adamolekun
Nigerian stocks Thursday closed on an upbeat note for the first time in four day as the force of investors’ interest in shares helped lift the benchmark index by 0.06 per cent even though trade remained conducted in an atmosphere of relative inactivity as it had been since the pandemic struck.
The progress was enough to reverse the loss of the preceding session but it still made the equities on course for a negative return this week, with shares generally seeing retreating devaluation Monday through Wednesday.
That became inevitable as investors shrank away from financial services stocks, the biggest class of shares by volume on the 155-listing exchange.
The strength to rise came back to the market on Thursday particularly on demand for shares as varied as GTCO, NAHCO and Oando.
Market breadth, a pointer to investors attitude towards investing in stocks, was moderately possible, considering that 16 advancers were reported compared to 12 losers.
The all-share index was 21.44 points stronger, closing at 38,874.13, while market capitalisation went up to N20.25 trillion.
Year to date, the index is down by 3.47 per cent.
TOP FIVE GAINERS
NAHCO led gainers, appreciating by 10 per cent to close at N3.52. Pharma Deko went up by 9.55 per cent to N1.95.
Veritas Kapital rose to N0.23, notching up 9.52 per cent in the process. Cornerstone added 9.43 per cent to end trade at N9.43. Chams climbed 4.76 per cent to N0.22.
TOP FIVE LOSERS
Sovereign Trust led losers, declining by 4.76 per cent to close at N0.23. UPDC shed 3.68 per cent to close at N1.83. ETI fell to N5.15, losing 2.83 per cent.
Transcorp slumped to N0.90, recording 2.17 per cent depreciation. Prestige closed at N0.47, going down by 2.08 per cent.
TOP FIVE TRADES
A total of 125.8 million shares estimated at N1.3 billion were in 2,990 deals.
Mutual Benefits was the most active stock, trading 13.7 million units worth N4.1 million in 19 deals. UCAP’s shares of 11.5 million units priced at N97.6 million exchanged hands in 163 transactions.
GTCO had 9.9 million shares valued at N270.9 million traded in 234 deals. Zenith traded 9.2 million shares estimated at N210.5 million in 289 transactions. Transcorp traded 7.6 million shares valued at N6.9 million in 69 deals.
