Lagos – Equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed for the 3rd consecutive day after the Sallah break on Friday in a positive note with the market indicators improving by 0.48 per cent.
Financial analysts attributed the improvement to interim dividend declared by some quoted companies.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the All-Share Index appreciated by 133.08 points or 0.48 per cent to close higher at 27,858.48 compared to 27,525.40 achieved on Thursday.
Similarly, the market capitalisation which opened at N9.52 trillion rose by N46 billion to close at N9.57 trillion.
Nigerian Breweries recorded the highest price gain to lead the gainers’ chart, growing by N3.37 to close at N145 per share, while Conoil followed with N2.95 up-lift to close at N31.84 per share.
Nestle and Seplat garnered N1 each to close at N826 and N326 per share respectively, while Unilever increased by 85k to close at N46 per share.
Conversely, Forte oil topped the laggards’ table with a loss of N3.99 to close at N161.01 per share.
UBN dipped 22k to close at N4.26 per share and Portpaint and Fidson dropped 0.08k each to close at N1.52 and N1.61 per share respectively.
Mobil decreased by 0.06k to close at N170 per share.
NAN also reports that the volume of shares increased as investors bought and sold 228.93 million shares worth N2.11 billion traded in 3,617 deals.
This was against the 200.29 million shares valued at N1.59 billion exchanged in 3,257 deals on Thursday.
An analysis of the activity chart showed that FBN Holdings was the most active with a total of 56.45 million shares worth N169.13 million.
FCMB came second with an exchange of 32.08 million shares valued at N32.06 million, while UBA sold 29.58 million shares worth N124.29 million.
Zenith Bank traded 13.67 million shares valued at N196.64 million and Fidelity Bank transacted 9.86 million shares worth N8.75 million.