After starting the week in the red zone, the Nigerian Exchange Limited on Tuesday, closed in the green zone with N166bn gain.

Losses recorded in the equities of some medium-cap companies dragged the market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange Limited to a loss of N259bn on Monday.

Recouping part of the previous day’s losses, both the market capitalisation and the All-Share Index rose by 0.43 per cent to close at N38.989tn and 71,250.17 respectively.

The drivers of the market trend were primarily the stocks of AccessCorp,  United Bank for Africa, Zenith Bank Plc, FBNHoldings, and MTN Nigeria.

Transaction volume rose by 20.93 per cent to  433.57 million from 358.53 million traded on Monday. The units were valued at over N11.11bn, signalling a 56.53 per cent increase over Monday’s trade value. The shares were exchanged in 7,016 deals and the number of stocks that saw some action during the day’s trading stood at 122.

The number of gainers surged to 40, chiefly led by stocks of Secure Electronic Technology Plc, Multiverse, Sunu Assurance, FBNH, and Thomas Wyatt with 10.00 per cent,  9.95 per cent, and 9.92 per cent gains each to close at N0.77, N7.07, N1.33, N26.75 and N3.02 per unit respectively.

Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc led the decliners’ chart with a 9.88 per cent depreciation to N1.55. FTN Cocoa Processors Plc lost N9.09 per cent to close at N1.5, Daar Communications saw its shares decline by 8.82 per cent to close at N0.31 per unit, Coronation Insurance Plc, which is in the middle of acquiring the shares of minority shareholders and subsequently delisting from the NGX, had 7.14 per cent shaved off its share value to close at N0.65 and Veritas Kapital Assurance Plc, which just announced Dr Adaobi Nwakuche as its Managing Director lost 5.41 per cent to close at N0.35 per unit.

The value drivers of the day’s market trend were the Nigeria Infrastructure Debt Fund, managed by Chapel Hill Denham, which on Monday announced a special distribution to unit holders off the sale of an asset. It traded 20,517,592 units valued at N2.22bn in 54 trades.

Airtel Africa had 1,202,823 of its shares worth N2.12bn exchanged in 31 deals, MTN Nigeria saw 5,575,900 units of its shares amounting to N1.33bn exchanged hands in 249 deals. Over 58.297 million units of UBA’s shares worth N1.24bn were exchanged in 426 deals and UAC Nigeria had the highest volume traded at 61,710,833 units of its shares valued at N947.411m exchanged in 78 deals.

Punch