By Chris Ndibe
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) market capitalisation crossed N14 trillion mark on the last trading day of September due to sustained confidence.
Specifically, the market capitalisation on Wednesday rose by N118 billion or 0.84 per cent to close at N14.025 trillion against N13.907 trillion achieved on Tuesday.
The increase in the market capitalisation was as a result of the listing of 146,878,241 ordinary shares of Dangote Sugar Refinery.
The additional shares listed on NSE arose from the Scheme of Merger between Dangote Sugar Refinery and Savannah Sugar Company Limited.
With this listing of the additional 146,878,241 ordinary shares, the total issued and fully paid up shares of Dangote Sugar Refinery increased from 12,000,000,000 to 12,146,878,241 ordinary shares of 50k each.
However, the All-Share Index increased by 201.80 points or 0.76 per cent to close at 26,813.76 compared with 26,611.96 posted on Tuesday.
The upturn was impacted by gains recorded in large and medium capitalised stocks, amongst which are; Total, Dangote Cement, MTN Nigeria Communications, Guaranty Trust Bank and UACN.
Consequently, market sentiment closed positive with 20 stocks in contrast with eight losers.
Total led the gainers’ chart in percentage terms, gaining 10 per cent to close at N96.80 per share.
Eterna followed with 9.60 per cent to close at N2.74, while UACN rose by 9.45 per cent to close at N6.95 per share.
Wapic Insurance rose by 5.71 per cent to close at 37k, while Jaiz Bank appreciated by 5.17 per cent to close at 61k per share.
Conversely, University Press dominated the losers’ chart in percentage terms, dropping 6.77 per cent to close at N1.24 per share.
Nigerian Breweries trailed with a loss of 6.76 per cent to close at N49, while PZ Cussons Nigeria lost 5.88 per cent to close at N4 per share.
Wema Bank shed 5.26 per cent to close at 54k, while Union Bank of Nigeria depreciated by 2.91 per cent to close at N5 per share.
However, the total volume traded decreased by 21.87 per cent with an exchange of 322.77 million shares, worth N4.04 billion traded in 4,046 deals.
This was in contrast with a turnover of 413.10 million shares valued at N4.53 billion traded in 4,681deals on Tuesday.
Transactions in the shares of Sterling Bank topped the activity chart with 83.69 million shares worth N105.44 million.
Access Bank sold 46.10 million shares valued at N308.35 million, while Zenith Bank traded 24.87 million shares worth N443.39 million.
Lafarge Africa transacted 18.70 million shares valued at N280.59 million, while Fidelity Bank exchanged 17.19 million shares worth N32.18 million.
