By Dipo Olowookere
The domestic stock exchange witnessed a rebound of 0.22 per cent on Monday as investors cherry-picked some large-cap equities, especially in the banking and industrial goods sectors, ahead of the end of the first half of 2023.
Some traders rekindled their interest in local shares as they anticipate price appreciation in names like GTCO, BUA Cement, Zenith Bank, and others in the short term.
This bet left the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited closing with 46 price gainers and 23 price losers, indicating a positive market breadth index and a strong investor sentiment.
Consequently, the top 5 price gainers, Tantalizers, Academy Press, Thomas Wyatt, Transcorp Hotels, and ABC Transport, gained 10.00 per cent each to settle at 22 Kobo, N2.20, N1.43, N19.36, and 44 Kobo, respectively.
Conversely, Unity Bank suffered the heaviest loss after its value shrank by 10.00 per cent to 99 Kobo, Japual depreciated by 9.23 per cent to 59 Kobo, Veritas Kapital went down by 8.70 per cent to 21 Kobo, Secure Electronic Technology dropped 7.89 per cent to 35 Kobo, and Cutix lost 5.45 per cent to trade at N2.60.
All the key sectors of the market ended in green yesterday, with the banking space rising by 2.40 per cent, the insurance growing by 1.68 per cent, the industrial goods industry appreciating by 1.00 per cent, the energy counter jumping by 0.52 per cent, and the consumer goods sector improving by 0.14 per cent.
As a result, the All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 132.13 points to 59,338.76 points from 59,206.63 points, and the market capitalisation expanded by N72 billion to N32.309 trillion from N32.237 trillion.
Business Post reports that investors bought and sold 552.7 million shares worth N13.1 billion in 8,052 deals during the session compared with the 627.9 million shares worth N9.2 billion traded in 6,953 deals last Friday, implying a decline in the volume of trades by 11.98 per cent, and an increase in the value of transactions and the number of deals by 42.39 per cent and 15.81 per cent apiece.
Access Holdings was the busiest stock on Monday as it sold 74.6 million units valued at N1.1 billion, BUA Cement transacted 45.4 million units worth N3.9 billion, GTCO traded 44.8 million units worth N1.5 billion, Universal Insurance exchanged 40.4 million units valued at N9.1 million, and Ecobank traded 39.8 million units for N604.8 million.
