Benchmark performance indicator of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) rose by 2.54 percent after yesterday’s trading on Customs Street. This percentage in- crease recorded yesterday at the Nigeria bourse was largely driven by share price gain by most largely capitalised stocks like Nestle Nigeria plc, Nigerian Breweries plc, Lafarge Africa plc, Dangote Cement plc, and GTBank plc. “We expect the out- come of the MPC meeting today to dictate the direction of the market for the rest of the week. A further tightening might rekindle weak sentiments, leading to a negative close for the week. That said, the readings on our technical indicators still suggest that the market is oversold, with possibilities of bargain hunting for the next few trading days. However, we believe only positive news flows can sustain the uptrend,” according to analysts at United Capital plc. The Nigerian Stock
Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) closed high at 29,773.40 points against the preceding trading day’s 29,034.89 points, while market capitalisation closed at N9.917trn, against preceding trading day’s N9.671trn. The Year- to-Date (YtD) return stood at -14.09 percent. Market analysis shows that volume equities traded rose by 63.12 percent, from 261.3m to 426.2m, while the total value of stock exchanged at the NSE increased by 19.34 percent, from N2.87bn to N3.42bn in 4,391 deals. The share price of Nestle Nigeria plc rose from N815.4 to N855, adding N39.6; Nigerian Breweries plc rose from N139 to N146, up by N7. Lafarge Africa gained N3.8, from N76 to N79.8; Dangote Cement plc gained N3, from N153 to N156; while GT- Bank plc recorded share price increase of N1.78, from N17.9 to N19.68. Thirty-two stocks gained yesterday while 15 equities lost their value.
On the losers’ chart, Guinness Nigeria plc led the pack after its share price declined from N130 to N126, down by N4; followed by Cadbury Nigeria plc which recorded share price decline of N2.1, from N42 to N39.9. PZ Cussons Nigeria plc dipped from N26 to N25.11, down by N0.89, University Press dropped from N4.22 to N3.81, down by N0.41; while Stanbic IBTC Holdings plc lost N0.38, from N25.5 to N25.12. Financial services’ sec- tor led the activity chart yesterday with 365.7m shares worth N1.6bn exchanged; while. Conglomerates followed with 31.7m shares worth N165m exchanged. The acceptance period of Oando rights issue of 2,217,265,184 ordinary shares of 50kobo each at N22 per share has been extended. Vetiva Securities Limited, on behalf of Oando plc, notified the Nigerian Stock Exchange that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved an extension to the acceptance period of the rights issue by two weeks. In line with the extension of acceptance period, trading in rights of the shares of Oando plc on the secondary market has been extended by a corresponding period of two weeks. Accordingly, the offer which was earlier scheduled to close on Wednesday January 14, 2015 would now close on Wednesday January 28, 2015.
Source : BusinessDay
