Investors’ interest in bellwethers lift NSE’s index by 1.27 per cent

[FILES] Nigerian Stock Exchange

Investors’ appetite for highly capitalised stocks brought the equities market to a bullish close on the last trading day of the year, as the All-Share Index (ASI) rose by 1.27 per cent. Yesterday, the ASI was rose 392.78 absolute points, representing an increase of 1.27 per cent to close at 31,430.50 points; just as the market capitalisation gained N384 billion to close at N11.721 trillion.
The upturn was impacted by gains recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which
were; Seplat Petroleum Development Company, Total Nigeria, Dangote Cement, Nestle Nigeria, and Nigerian Breweries.

Analysts at Afrinvest Limited, said: “as we anticipated, there was an overall positive performance today. This was due to portfolio rebalancing actions by asset and portfolio managers. In the coming year, we expect the equities market to resume trading on a weak note while anticipating a post-election rally across all indices on the local bourse.”
Market breadth closed positive with 32 gainers against 17 losers. Vitafoam Nigeria recorded the highest price gain of 10 per cent to close at N4.40, per share.
Champion Breweries followed with a gain of 9.94 per cent to close at N1.99, while Diamond Bank rose by 9.55 per cent to close at N2.18, per share.
Unity Bank appreciated by 9.18 per cent to close at N1.07, while Niger Insurance rose 9.09 per cent to close at 24 kobo per share.
On the other hand, Stanbic IBTC holdings led the losers’ chart by 9.95 per cent to close at N47.95 per share.
Forte Oil fell by 9.89 per cent to close at N28.70, while Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals lost 9.30 per cent to close at 78 kobo per share, respectively.
Aiico Insurance shed 8.70 per cent to close at 63 kobo, while Cutix depreciated 7.87 per cent to close at N1.64 per share, respectively.
However, total volume traded fell by 29.1 per cent to 929.32 million units, valued at N3.95 billion exchanged in 4,144 deals.
Transactions in the shares of Union Diagnostic & Clinical Services topped the activity chart with 267.5 million shares valued at N66.88 million. Diamond Bank followed with 227.57 million shares worth N492.75 million, while NEM Insurance traded 145.29 million shares valued at N392.2 million.
Med-View Airline traded 70.91 million shares valued at N145.37 million, and Fidelity Bank transacted 48.03 million shares worth N96.55 million.