•Index records new high, crosses 80,000 points

By Nkiruka Nnorom

The surge in the stock market that began since the beginning of the year continued yesterday with investors recording N363 billion gains, to bring the cumulative capital appreciation for the year to N3.04 trillion.

Also the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX All AShare Index (ASI), which measures the performance of the market, closed 0.83 percent higher after crossing the 80,000 psychological mark to close at 80,328.58 points from 79,664.66 points, following buy interest in tier-1 banks – Zenith Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Company (GTCo) Plc and the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc.

As a result, the Year-to-Date (YtD) settled at 7.42 percent.

Similarly, the equities market capitalisation rose to N43.957 trillion from N43.594 trillion, indicating a 0.83 percent increase.

Analysis of the day’s trading showed that Zenith Bank Plc, GTCo Plc and UBA Plc, which drove the market performance, recorded 2.50 percent , 3.53 percent  and 3.28 percent returns respectively, thereby offsetting selloff in Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc which declined by 0.38%, Nigerian Breweries Plc 0.13% and Fidelity Bank Plc 5.99%.

Sectoral analysis indicated that all five sectors appreciated in reflection of the overall market performance. The insurance sector led with 6.3 percent increase, followed by the banking sector 2.2%, industrial goods sector 0.7%, oil & gas 0.6% and consumer goods 0.1%.

Further analysis showed that market activities closed higher as total traded volume rose by 33.3 percent to 1.19 billion units, while value traded was up 6.48% to N15.26 billion.

Transcorp Plc with 9.79 percent price appreciation led both the volume and value charts with 298.30 million units and N4.08 billion respectively.