• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

Nigeria stock market rallies further on increased bargains

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Remote trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) witnessed increased bargain on Thursday, April 9, making it the third positive this week as more investors chose to buy fundamentally sound stocks that hitherto traded at record lows.

The market defied analysts’ expectations of possible profit-taking activity following previous days of gains.

The NSE All Share Index (ASI) increased by 1.47 percent at the close of trading session.

Top on the bargain hunters list are shares of Nestle Nigeria Plc, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc and Lafarge Africa Plc.

As at 3.58 pm Nigerian time on Thursday, April 9, Brent crude was trading at a record-high of $35.32 per barrel. Developments in the crude oil market coupled with the Coronavirus Pandemic continue to rattle the stock market.

Federal Government efforts to curtail the spread of the virus led to the lockdown of Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, the FCT Abuja, and Ogun State.

Nestle recorded the highest gain on the Bourse after its share price moved from day open low of N765 to N830.2, adding N65.2 or 8.52percent. It was followed by Seplat which rose from N490.1 to N495, adding N4.9 or 1percent.

On the decliners list, BUA Cement led others after its share price moved from day open high of N31.5 to N30.8, losing 70kobo or 2.22percent.

The NSE ASI increased from 21, 073.26 points to 21,384.03 points while the value of listed stocks increased by N162billion to N11.144trillion, from preceding day low of N10.982trillion.

This month, the stock market has yielded a positive return of +0.39 percent, while the year-to-date (YtD) negative return moderated further to -20.33 percent.

All NSE sectoral indexes closed positive on Thursday except NSE industrial index that dipped. Banking stocks were actively traded, led by FBN Holdings, GTBank, Zenith Bank and UBA.

In 5,427 deals, investors exchanged 314,906,187 units valued at N5.01 billion.