Year to Date, YtD return on investment in the stock market has declined by 1. 5 per cent as the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE market capitalisation closed yesterday at N9.709 trillion from N9.85 trillion.
Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE All share index increased by 16.09 points or 0.06 per cent to close at 28,263.16 points as against the previous close of 28,247.07 points.
Volume traded decreased by 5.77 per cent from 265.075 million to 249.768 million, while the total value of stock traded increased by 25.63 per cent from ¦ 1.560 billion to ¦ 1.960 billion in 3,170 deals.
The Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 217.062 million shares exchanged for ¦ 0.728 billion. Consumer Goods came next with 11.677 million shares traded for ¦ 0.569 billion, Conglomerates, Oil And Gas, Agriculture sectors followed in that order on the activity chart.
Fidelity Bank Diamond Bank, Access Bank, FCMB and UBA Plc were the most active stocks by volume. Flourmill, Cadbury, Skyebank, Champion and Lawunion emerged the highest price gainers on the chart, while Betaa Glass, Caverton, Conoil, Oando and Livestock topped the losers chart.
It will be recalled that despite the unchanged Monetary Policy Rate, MPR by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting, investors in the stock market, last week gained over N140 billion as the NSE market capitalisation rose from N9.563 trillion at the beginning of trading week to close last Friday at N9.703 trillion.
Analysis of trading shows that at the last trading day of the week on Friday, the equity market closed in green as stocks rebounded driven by blue chip companies.
However, It was observed that investors reduced their exposure on banking stocks as the sub-index declined by 1.3 per cent on Friday alone.
Meanwhile, a turnover of 4.331 billion shares worth N16.803 billion in 16,797 deals were traded last week by investors on the floor of the exchange in contrast to a total of 611.527 million shares valued at N5.495 billion that exchanged hands penultimate week in 9,650 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely – Great Nigerian Insurance Plc, FCMB Group Plc and Diamond Bank Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 3.299 billion shares worth N3.704 billion in 1,308 deals, contributing 76.18 per cent and 22.04 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
