By Philemon Adedeji
Trading activities on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) closed in green zone as the local bourse rebounded by 3.99 per cent to close at 58,163.55 absolute points, driving by Investor interest in telco heavyweights, Airtel Africa (+7.78 per cent), MTNN (+3.60 per cent), Zenith Bank (+10.00 per cent), GTCO (10.00 per cent) and STANBIC (+9.33 per cent) were the primary drivers of the overall market’s strong performance.
As a result, the year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 13.49 per cent, while market capitalisation value gained N1.22 trillion to close at N31.670 trillion
The upturn performance was impacted by price appreciation in medium and large capitalized stocks which are: Access Corporation, Guaranty Trust Holding Company, LASACO Assurance and others.
The breakdown of yesterday’s market activities revealed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 215.93 per cent.
The trade volume increased to 1.186 billion shares valued at N19.23 billion were exchanged in 10,369 deals.
United Bank of Africa (UBA) (+9.55 per cent) led the volume chart with 214.94 million units traded, while GTCO (+10.00 per cent) led the value chart in deals worth N6.24 billion.
As measured by market breadth market sentiment closed positive as 61 stocks dominated the gainers chart, while 13 stocks dominated the losers chart.
On the advancers table, Access Corporation, Guaranty Trust Holding Company, LASACO Assurance, NASCON, and Zenith Bank, led as the overall price gainer with 10.00 per cent gain each increased to close at N14.30, N30.80, N1.98, N17.05 and N30.80 per share respectively.
On the other hand, Ellah Lakes and Johnholts led the losers chart with 10.00 per cent each to close at N3.60 and N1.26 per share respectively, while TIP went down by 9.62 per cent to close at N0.47 per share.
Caverton Offshore which recorded as the last fourth loser lost 4.62 per cent to close at N1.24 per share, while Veristaskap Insurance which recorded as the last fifth loser decreased by 4.35 per cent to close at N0.22 per share.
Transaction in the shares of United Bank for Africa (UBA) topped the activities chart with 214.944 million shares worth 2.333 billion, closely followed by Guaranty Trust Holding Company which exchanged 208.061 million shares valued at 6.243 billion, while Zenith Bank transacted 85.699 million shares valued at 2.623 billion.
Japaulgold accounted 72.595 million shares worth 37.401 million and Access Corporation sold 72.111 million shares valued at 1.015 billion.