By Samuel Bankole
Nigeria’s equities opened the week strong on Monday as the market benchmark index grew by 1.11 percent, driven mainly by banking stocks and food stocks.
Results of transactions at today’s market activities showed that shares of Dangote Sugar, Fidelity Bank, Sterling Bank Holding Company, FCMB Group, Ecobank, Zenith Bank, and GTCO posted substantial gains.
However, the local currency, the naira, depreciated on the official market but was flat on the parallel market.
The dollar was quoted at N747.87 on the I&E forex window on Monday compared with the previous close of N740.38, while it was flat on the parallel market at N917 to the dollar.
Shares in Dangote Sugar closed higher by the maximum 10 percent; Fidelity Bank gained 8.39 percent; Sterling rose 8.24 percent; FCMB Group was up 8.17 percent; and Ecobank rose 8.00 percent.
Also, the shares of Zenith Bank rose 7.85 percent, GTCO gained 6.58 percent, and BUA Foods rose by 2.56 percent at the close of transactions.
The All Share Index (ASI) increased by 1.11 percent to close at 68,279.14 points, while the market cap of equities listed on the NGX increased to N37.370 trillion from N36.958 trillion in the previous session.
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Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return of equities in the market rose to 33.22 percent, while the market capitalization YTD stood at +33.87 percent.
The NGX 30 Index increased by 1.19 percent to close at 2,519.45 points as against 2,489.74 points at the previous close.
Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 88.56 percent.
A total of 845.68 million shares valued at N13.04 billion were exchanged in 11,934 deals.
REGALINS (+0.00 percent) led the volume chart with 100.98 million units traded, while Zenith Bank (+7.85 percent) led the value chart with deals worth N2.80 billion.
Market breadth closed positive at a 2.07-to-1 ratio with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones. Dangote Sugar (+10.00 percent) topped thirty (30) others on the leader’s table, while Cornerstone (-9.29 percent) led fourteen (14) others on the laggard’s log.
Meanwhile, FMDQ Exchange approved the quotation of Robust International Commodities Limited’s N7.56 billion series 9 and N0.58 billion series 10 commercial papers under the company’s N20.00 billion commercial paper issuance program on its platform.
(Edited by Oludare Mayowa; omayowa@globalfinancialdigest.com; Newsroom: +234 8033 964 138)
