Dangote Cement leads gainers’ table as NSE market capitalisation increases by N208bn

Transactions sustained positive trend on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday with the market capitalisation growing by N208 billion amid gains by cement, banking and consumer goods stocks.
The market capitalisation, which opened trading with N12.52 trillion, rose by N208 billion or 1.66 per cent to close at N12.73 trillion.
Similarly, the All-Share Index inched 603.98 points or 1.66 per cent to close higher at 36,920.56 points compared with 36,316.58 points achieved on Thursday.
Dangote Cement grew by N5.20 to close at N225 per share, and led the gainers’ table for the day.
Guaranty Trust Bank followed with a gain of N2.40 to close at N39.50 per share and Stanbic IBTC appreciated by N1.85 to close at N38.85 per share.
Zenith International Bank added N1.52 to close at N24.53 per share, while PZ Industries increased by N1.28 to close at N26.93 per share.
Market watchers attributed the development to investors’ repositioning ahead of release of Access Bank and United Bank for Africa (UBA) 2017 half year results.
They said that the repositioning sustained the volatility witnessed in the market in the last couple of days.
Conversely, Okomu Oil Palm recorded the highest loss at the trading, dropping by N3.63 to close at N69.09 per share.
Nigerian Breweries trailed with a loss of N2.98 to close at N181.07 and Cadbury was down by 63k to close at N12.07 per share.
UACN declined by 60k to close at N16 per share, and CCNN lost 45k to close at N9.22 per share.
Also, the volume of shares traded closed higher as investors traded a total of 236.62 million shares valued at N4.81 billion in 3,803 deals.
This was in contrast with a turnover of 225.14 million shares worth N5.48 billion traded in 5,110 deals on Thursday.
Zenith International Bank was most active, trading 61.85 million shares valued at N1.47 billion.
UBA followed with an account of 40.41 million shares worth N380.68 million and GT Bank traded 32.51 million shares valued at N1.26 billion.
Fidelity Bank sold 12.38 million shares worth N16.04 million, while FBN Holdings exchanged 11.74 million shares valued N70.10 million.