By Amaka Ifeakandu
Investment in the nation’s equity market yesterday took upward trend following gains recorded by some blue chip companies. The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) rose by 121.13 basis points to 41642.55 points from 41521.42 points recorded on Tuesday.
Also market capitalisation of listed equities increased by N40 billion or 0.29% to N13.750 trillion from N13.710 trillion traded the previous day.
Mobil Oil led the gainers table for the day, growing by N5.05 kobo to close at N131.05 kobo. Dangote Cement followed with a gain of N3.40 kobo to close at N230.00, while Conoil advanced by N2.85 kobo to close at N59.85 kobo.
UAC Property Development and Betaglass also increased by N0.75 kobo and N0.59 kobo respectively to close at N18.00 and N16.39 kobo.
Nestle Nigeria on the other hand recorded the highest loss for the day, declining by N10.01 kobo to close at N1, 070. Lafarge Wapco trailed with a loss of N2.29 kobo to close at N109.70 kobo while Unilever Nigeria depreciated by N1.05 kobo to close at N49.60 kobo.
Guinness Nigeria also fell by N1.01 kobo to close at N179.00 and Nigerian Breweries loss N1.00 to close at N179.00.
An analysis of the trading activities showed that MTI recorded the highest volume of activity during the day accounting for 200.000 million shares worth N100.000 million. Transcorp of the conglomerates sector followed with account of 35.157 million shares valued at N150.971 million, while United Bank for Africa (UBA) exchanged 35.144 million shares worth N281.974 million.
Diamond Bank traded 24.766 million shares cost N166.073 million and FBN Holdings sold a total of 20.716 million shares valued at N322.883 million.
In all investors traded a turnover of 468.913 million shares worth N3.845 billion in 5345 deals against 1.407 billion shares valued at N8.471 billion exchanged the previous day in 5680 deals.