By Chris Ndibe
Activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) extended positive trend on Tuesday with key market indices appreciating further by 0.31 per cent.
Specifically, the All Share Index (ASI) rose by 75.82 points or 0.31 per cent to close at 24,841.94 compared with 24,766.12 recorded on Monday.
Similarly, the market capitalisation which opened at N12.919 trillion appreciated by N40 billion to close at N12.959 trillion.
The performance was driven by buying sentiments across Nigerian Breweries, Seplat and some Tier 1 bank stocks.
Consequently, the Month-to-Date gain increased to 0.6 per cent, while Year-to-Date loss moderated to -7.5 per cent.
Market watchers stated that the current undervalue state of the market offered opportunities to position for the short, medium and long-term.
They urged investors to target fundamentally sound, and dividend-paying stocks for possible capital appreciation going forward.
Market sentiment closed positive with 23 gainers and 10 losers.
A breakdown of the price movement table, showed that AXA Mansard Insurance led the gainers’ chart in percentage terms, gaining 9.72 per cent to close at N1.58 per share.
It was trailed by UACN with a gain 8.73 per cent to close at N6.85, while Jaiz Bank increased by 7.27 per cent to close at 59k per share.
NPF Microfinance Bank garnered 5.88 per cent to close at N1.26, while Mutual Benefits rose by 4.76 per cent, to close at 22k per share.
On the other hand, Chemical and Allied Products dominated the losers’ chart in percentage terms, dropping 9.94 per cent to close at N15.40, per share.
Total came second with a loss of 9.91 per cent to close at N79.10, while Ardova dipped 9.67 per cent to close at N12.15 per share.
Unilever shed 8.57 per cent to close at N11.20, while GlaxoSmithKline lost 8.49 per cent to close at N4.85 per share.
Transactions in the shares Transcorp topped the activity chart, accounting for 13.54million shares valued at N8.08 million.
FBN Holdings followed with a turnover of 11.72 million shares worth N59.18 million, while Lafarge Africa traded 8.96 million shares valued at N105.26 million.
Nigerian Breweries sold 8.87 million shares worth N283.32 million, while Custodian Investment transacted 8.64 million shares worth N43.35 million.
In all, the volume of shares traded dropped by 17.17 per cent with an exchange of 154.47 million shares worth N1.46 billion in 4,222 deals.
This was in contrast with a total of 186.48 million shares valued at N1.31 billion achieved in 4,718 deals on Monday.
