NSE index hits 33,000 mark

Activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) remained on a bullish trend on Friday with the All-Share Index crossing the 33,000 mark for the first time since June 2015.
The index grew by 338.70 points or 1.03 per cent to close at 33,276.68 against 32,937.98 achieved on Thursday.
Similarly,  the market capitalisation inched N117 billion or 1.03 per cent to close at N11.503 trillion compared with N11.386 trillion posted on Thursday due to huge gains by some blue chips.
A breakdown of the price movement chart indicated that Seplat led the  gainers’ table, growing by N43.56 to close at N468.56 per share.
Market analysts attributed Seplat’s steady price appreciation to recovering of  lost crude output after force majeure was lifted on the Forcados export terminal.
Seplat said in a statement that the lifting of the force majeure helped it to successfully reinstate gross production at its oil mining licences (OMLs) 4, 38 and 41 to levels last seen before the terminal’s closure.
Further analysis of the price movement table showed that Forte oil followed with N5.97 to close at N64.30 and International Breweries increased by N2.99  to close at N32.23 per share.
Presco gained N2.97 to close at N62.50, while Total N2.50 to close at N282 per share.
On the other hand, Flour Mills topped the losers’ pack with a loss of  N1.20 to close at N27.60 pet share.
Mobil trailed with a loss of N1.14 to close at N285.86, while Nigerian Breweries shed 50k to close at N156 per share.
Unilever declined by 45k to close at N35.55, while UPL depreciated by 37k to close at N3.46 per share.
Access Bank was the toast of investors in volume terms,  accounting for 125.01 million shares valued at  N1.29 billion.
It was trailed by FCMB Group with 105. 75 million shares worth N147.48 million,  while Diamond Bank  sold 72.96 million shares valued at N108.26 million.
FBN Holdings traded 71.99 million shares worth N504.32 million and Fidelity Bank exchanged 55.78 million shares valued at N80.12 million.
In all, a total of 686.30 million shares worth N6.07 billion were exchanged by investors in 6,785 deals against 528.69 million shares valued at N4.84 billion in 5,603 on Thursday.