As market cap hits N32trn mark
President Bola Tinubu’s policies appear to be having a ripple effect on Nigeria’s economy and it is no surprise that the capital market – the barometer of the economy is having a positive outing again this week.
After recording sales of about 1.18 billion stocks in Tuesday’s trading session after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was suspended last week, the CBN’s latest authorization to commercial banks to freely trade FX at any rate, pushed the sale of stocks higher by 9.3 per cent to 1.296 billion.
This meant that the total volume of stocks traded has risen by 2.5 billion. Furthermore, investors continued to raise their stakes as the value of stock transactions rose to N40.31 billion.
At the close of trading, the NGX All Share Index (ASI) ended 3.13 per cent stronger to settle at 59,985.10 points from an opening figure of 58,163.55 points due to sustained demands in MTN Nigeria, Zenith Bank, GTCO and Seplat.
Consequently, the year-to-date (ytd) return rose to 17 per cent as market capitalization gained N992 billion to close at N32.662 trillion from N31.670 trillion recorded in the previous trading session.
Analysing by sectors, the Banking (+26.5 per cent) and Insurance (+23.0 per cent) indices recorded the most significant gains, followed by the Oil & Gas (+16.0 per cent), and Consumer Goods (+4.1 per cent) indices. The Industrial Goods (-1.1 per cent) index was the sole loser of the day.
Dangote Sugar led 69 others on the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at N25.30 per share. FBN Holdings followed with a 10 per cent gain to close at N15.95, International Breweries gained 10 per cent to close at N5.50, Seplat increased by 10 per cent to close at N1,320 while Transcorp Hotels grew by 10 per cent to close at N12.10.
On the flipside, Pharmdeko topped the losers’ chart with 9.65 per cent to close at N2.06 per share. CWG was next with 9.44 per cent to close at N1.63, NNFM fell by 8.66 per cent to close at N12.65, BUA Cement declined by 6.52 per cent to close at N86 while Ardova dropped 5.06 per cent to close at N16.90.
