By Peter Egwuatu

Equities trading on the floor of Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE ended in the positive territory, yesterday as investors gained N34.915 billion. The market capitalisation which represents the total value of equities traded on the exchange appreciated by 0.34 per cent to close at N10.335 trillion from N10.300 trillion.

In the same vein, another stock market performance indicator, the All Share Index up by 0.43 per cent to close at 30,973.80 from 30,869.17 points.

The total value of stock traded increased by 13.17 per cent from ¦ 3.855 billion to ¦ 4.362 billion in 4,252 deals. The Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 207.645 million shares exchanged for ¦ 1.888 billion. Conglomerates came next with 17.999 million shares traded for ¦ 0.057 billion,

The Banking sub sector led activity chart gaining 1.66 per cent, followed by Industrial stock which appreciated by 0.10 per cent. Meanwhile, the Consumer Goods declined by 0.47 per cent and continued to come under selling pressure and closed the day lower.

Gains recorded by First Bank Nigeria Holding, FBNH , Sterling Bank , ETI, GT Bank and Zenith Bank accounted for the good performance of the banking stocks.

Specifically, FBHN gained 4.94 per cent to close at N8.93, followed by Sterling Bank which appreciated by 3.83 per cent to close at N2.44. ETI appreciated by 3.77 to close at N18.99, followed by GT Bank which edged up by 3.18 per cent to close a N25.00) and Zenith bank up by 1.60 per cent to close at N21.00.

Other gainers include: Cutix (8.57 per cent) which closed at N1.52 and Dangcem (+0.29 per cent to close at N154.00 were the value drivers in the Industrial sector.

Losses seen on Unilever was 2.32 per cent to close at N34.05), followed by PZ which dropped by 1.57 per cent to close at N27.00. Guinness declined by 1.53 per cent to close at N126.61. Honeywell flour Mills declined by 0.38 per cent to close at N2.65 followed by NASCON which dipped by 0.15 per cent to close at N6.59 and Nigerian Breweries , NB dropped by 0.04 per cent to close at N140.00. The losses recorded by the equities caused the downtrend of the Consumer Goods sub sector.

A few notable trades of the day were the transactions consummated on; GT bank worth N693 million ($3.50 million), NB: N670 million ($3.38 m), Zenith bank: N549 million ($2.77 m), FBNH: N307 million ($1.55 m) and UBA: N117 million ($592k). An off-market cross deal of 82.8 million units of Oando Plc was consumated at N18.00.