NGX capitalisation hits N50tr mark on bargain hunting in industrial firms

The reign of the bulls continued unabated on the equities sector of the capital market yesterday as the capitalisation crossed N50 trillion mark, while the all-share index (ASI) hit 91,000 mark.

This notable upswing was attributed to investors’ interest spanning various stocks within the industrial, oil and gas as well as consumer goods .

ASI gained 1,833.72 points, representing a gain of 2.04 per cent to close at 91,896.97 points.

Also, market capitalisation rose by N1.006 trillion to close at N50.29 trillion.

The upturn was driven by price appreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks amongst which are Dangote Cement, BUA Cement, MRS Oil Nigeria, Conoil and Okomu Oil.

However, as measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative, as 42 tickers lost relative to 33 gainers.

Conoil, Eterna, John Holt, NEM Insurance and Unity Bank emerged the highest price gainer of 10 per cent each to close at N112.20 kobo, N20.90 kobo, N2.53 kobo, N8.25 kobo and N3.30 kobo respectively.

PZ Cussons Nigeria and May & Baker Nigeria followed with a gain of 9.96 per cent each to close at N39.20 kobo and N7.51 kobo while McNichols advanced by 9.94 per cent to close at N1.77 kobo.

On the other side, Ikeja Hotel led others on the losers’ chart with 9.79 per cent to close at N8.11 kobo. Royal Exchange followed with a decline of 9.78 per cent to close at 83 kobo, while Mutual Benefits Assurance shed 9.57 per cent to close at 85 kobo.

The total volume traded declined by 12.2 per cent to 1.14 billion units, valued at N19.29 billion, and exchanged in 17,804 deals. Transactions in the shares of Transnational Corporation (Transcorp) led the activity with 156.621 million shares worth N2.961 billion.

Also, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria yesterday announced it has received the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval of its scheme arrangement (earlier sanctioned by the Federal High Court).

Accordingly, the company is set to apply to delist its shares from trading on the NGX, in line with its strategic intent to cease commercialisation of its business in Nigeria through local operating companies.