Guinness, other stocks drive NSE ASI high by 0.41%

Nigeria’s stock market defied earlier negative predictions to close in the green zone on Tuesday, March 16 as investors showed interest in Guinness Nigeria Plc and other value counters.

Market watchers had predicted earlier bearish performance to filter into Tuesday trading session due to lack of positive news capable of lifting investors’ sentiment.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the February inflation report with headline inflation jumping to a 4-year high at 17.33percent year-on-year (y/y) from 16.47 percent in January 2021.

At the Nigerian stock market, Guinness led the league of advancers after its share price moved up by N2.3 or 10 percent, from N23 to N25.3. Also, Vitafoam rallied from by 40kobo or 5.44percent, from N7.35 to N7.75; while Livestock Feeds made the top advancers after its share price increased by 7kobo or 3.83percent, from N1.83 to N1.9.

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At the close of the trading session on Tuesday, March 16, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI) increased by 0.41 percent, from 38,561.84 points to 38,720.81 points while the value of listed stocks on the Nigerian Bourse increased by N83billion, from N20.175 trillion to N20.258trillion.

Despite the record positive close of equities trading on Custom Street, more investors chose to sell stocks like Wapic (-9.09percent), Africa Prudential (-8.26percent), Fidelity Bank (-6.69percent), ETI (-5.83percent), and GTBank (-4.84percent).

UBA, Access Bank, Mutual Benefit, Mansard and GTBank were the most traded stocks on the Exchange. In 4,192 deals, investors exchanged 220,857,225 units valued at N4.205billion.