January 4, 2018

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) market indicators on Thursday improved by 1.28 per cent due to gains posted by some petroleum equities.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Seplat led the gainers’ table, increasing by N23.78 to close at N650 per share.

Forte Oil came second on the gainers’ table with a gain of N2.10 to close at N44.10, Lafarge Africa garnered N2 to close at N49.10 per share.

International Breweries also rose by N2 to close at N56.99, while Guaranty Trust Bank advanced by N1.54 to close at N42.34 per share.

Consequently, the market capitalisation which opened at N13.589 trillion inched N174 billion or 1.28 per cent to close at N13.763 trillion.

In the same vein, the All-Share Index increased by 488.84 points or 1.28 per cent to close at 38,676.12 against 38,187.28 achieved on Wednesday.

On the other hand, Nestle recorded the highest price loss, shedding N55.99 to close at N1,500 per share.

Mobil Oil trailed with a loss of N6.80 to close at N170, while PZ Industries dropped 80k to close at N20.40 per share.

Custodian and Allied Insurance shed 19k to close at N3.79, while NEM Insurance declined by 8k to close at N1.57 per share.

NAN reports that Diamond Bank Plc led the activity chart, trading 169.06 million shares worth N314.22 million.

FCMB Group followed with an account of 163.34 million shares valued at N297.58 million, while Transcorp traded 144.92 million shares worth N241.79 million.

Skye Bank sold 89.26 million shares valued at N50.21 million, while Sterling Bank exchanged 37.81 million shares worth N45.79 million.

In all, the volume of shares traded increased by 39.95 per cent as investors bought and sold 825.13 million shares valued at N3.89 billion in 6,220 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 589.58 million shares worth N2.12 billion transacted in 4,366 deals on Thursday.