Nigerian bourse opens week in positive territory, adds N8bn

The Nigerian equities market opened the week strong on Monday as it gained six basis points to close at 36484.30 to bring year-to-date returns to 35.76 percent even as investors gained N8 billion. Market capitalisation also closed higher at N12.688 trillion from a previous close of N12.680 million.

The value and volume of trades both dropped by 39.36 per cent and 30.27 per cent to close at N1.82 billion and 175 million shares respectively.

Gains recorded in the market on Monday despite the fall in both the value and volume of trade is owed to the increased activity in high cap stocks like Dangote Cement, Transnational Corporation and some of the banking stocks.

Market breadth was negative as the day trading recorded 21 losers as against 18 gainers.

ASEM, Lotus, NSE 30, Banking and Oil&Gas sector indices all closed higher relative to their previous trading levels while the Insurance, Consumer Goods and Industrial sector performance indicators recorded negative daily changes with the Industrial sector recording the greatest loss of 1.46 percent.

Banking stocks took the lead on both value-based and volume-based performance charts as FBN Holdings, Diamond Bank, United Bank of Africa, Zenith Bank and Transnational Corporation topped the latter in order of appearance while Zenith Bank, Dangote Cement, Guaranty Trust Bank, FBN Holdings and United Bank of Africa make up the respective top five spots in the former.