By Dickson Pat
A day after crossing the 124,000-point threshold, the All-Share Index ,ASI, of the Nigerian Exchange ,NGX, Limited hit another milestone on Friday after it closed higher by 1.37%.
The benchmark index of Customs Street finished at 126,149.59 points after adding 1,702.79 points to the 124,446.80 points it ended a day earlier.
Equally, the market capitalisation of the Nigerian bourse, which measures the total value of stocks on the platform, went up by N1.077 trillion to N79.803 trillion from N78.726 trillion.
At the trading session, 65 equities ended on the gainers’ chart and 25 equities finished on the losers’ table, indicating a positive market breadth index and strong investor sentiment.
Guinness Nigeria, Cadbury Nigeria, Consolidated Hallmark, and NEM Insurance all gained 10.00 per cent each to close at N96.80, N60.50, N3.63, and N22.00 apiece, and Red Star Express improved by 9.98% to N13.44.
Conversely, Learn Africa depreciated by 8.66% to N6.01, Tantalizers shed 6.25% to settle at N3.00, Prestige Assurance slumped by 6.02% to N1.25, Regency Alliance crashed by 5.62% to 84 Kobo, and Oando lost 4.61% to close at N51.70.
The NGX recorded a turnover of 1.4 billion shares traded for N30.6 billion in 33,399 deals on Friday compared with the 1.3 billion shares worth N27.7 billion traded in 27,875 deals on Thursday, implying an increase in the trading volume, value, and number of deals by 7.69 per cent, 10.47%, and 19.82%, respectively.
Access Holdings led the activity chart with 172.9 million units sold for N4.2 billion, Ellah Lakes traded 144.9 million units valued at N1.8 billion, Japaul exchanged 138.7 million units worth N498.8 million, UBA transacted 73.0 million units worth N3.2 billion, and AIICO Insurance traded 60.7 million units worth N135.7 million.
A look at the sectorial performance indicated that the banking index grew by 5.61%, the insurance counter rose by 3.78%, and the industrial goods sector expanded by 1.69%.
However, the energy space depreciated by 0.49%, the consumer goods industry went down by 0.23%, and the commodity sector slipped by 0.02%.
