NGX Maintains Upswing as Investors Gain N137bn

The market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange Limited gained N137bn at the close of trading on Tuesday, maintaining its positive trend this week.

Similarly, the All-Share Index also appreciated by 0.48 per cent or 252.06 base points to 52,621.19. The year-to-date returns also moved upward to 2.67 per cent from 2.18 per cent on Monday.

In terms of trading, a total of 350,974,154 million shares worth N 5.169bn were exchanged on the floor of the NGX in 5,946 deals. The United Bank for Africa led the chart in terms of volume as 62,448,401m units of its shares valued at N511m were traded, while Zenith Bank led the value chart with N 1.582bn worth of shares traded on Tuesday.

Investors’ sentiment as measured by market breadth improved, resulting in 33 gainers against the 15 decliners. The gainers on Tuesday included, Transcorp, which led the chart with a 9.85 per cent appreciation to close at N2.90, Tripple G gained 9.83 per cent to close at N3.24, Unilever gained 9.70 per cent to close at 14.70, UPL gained 9.63 per cent to close at N2.05 and Chams’ shares appreciated by 9.38 per cent to close at N0.35.

On the losers’ table, Chellaram led with a 9.94 per cent loss to close at 1.63, followed by Sunu Assurance Plc whose shares lost 9.43 per cent to close trading at N0.48. CILeasing lost 8.83 per cent to close at N3.20, JapaulGold lost 5.71 per cent to close at N0.33, and consumer goods manufacturer, Cadbury lost 5.48 per cent in its share value to close at N16.40.

Performance across tracked indices was largely bullish as the Banking and Consumer Goods indices led the sectoral gainers’ chart by 1.55 per cent and 0.35 per cent respectively, owing to buy interests in Zenith Bank (+2.08 per cent) and Unilever (+9.70 per cent).

Similarly, the Oil & Gas and Industrial Goods indices rose by 0.04 per cent and 0.02 per cent respectively, due to gains in Eterna (+1.40 per cent) and Wapco (+0.41 per cent). On the other end, sell-offs in Sunu Assurance (-9.43 per cent) and Mansard (-4.76 per cent) drove the Insurance index down by 0.01 per cent.