Investors gain N36.8bn as Oando, Courteville, Eterna lead gainers

By Adesola Afolabi

The bulls had the upper hand at the equities segment of the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Thursday as the lead market indicator- The All Share Index closed in the positive region.

Investors gained a total of N36.8 bn when market capitalization closed the day higher than previous session’s closing figure at N14.764 trillion

The ASI added 0.25 per cent or 101.83 basis points to close at 40,874.09 points as Oando led 18 gainers against 24 declining stocks that were topped by First Aluminum.

With a negative market breadth of 18 gainers to 24 losers, demand for Oando shares led to a 6.08 percent appreciation of the stock to close at N9.60 per share. Courteville Business Solutions emerged the second highest gainer for the day with an increase of 5 percent in its shares to close at 21 kobo per share while Eterna Plc added 4.82 percent to close at N6.52 per share.

Conversely, top three losers for the day were First Aluminum that lost 7.55 percent to close at 49 kobo per share. Mobil followed with a decrease of 4.74 percent to close at N181 per share and FCMB added 4 percent to close at N2.40 per share.

FCMB, Oando and Zenith Bank emerged the three most traded stocks for the day.

FCMB exchanged 204.1 million shares worth approximately N492 million, Oando traded 185.5 million shares worth N1.8bn and Zenith Bank accounted for 70.7 million shares, valued at N1.91 billion.

The total volume of shares traded for the day were 740.5 million shares. They were valued at N8.9 billion and exchanged in 5,554 deals.