Activities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened for the week on Monday on an upward trend with the market capitalisation appreciating by N72 billion due to price growth.
The market capitalisation, which opened at N8.83 trillion, increased by N72 billion or 0.81 per cent to close at N8.91 trillion.
Also, the All-Share Index rose by 208.16 points or 0.81 per cent to close at 25,902.95 compared with 25,694.79 posted on Friday.
Market analysts attributed the growth to dividend provision announced by a handful of firms for their full year earning ended Dec. 31, 2015.
The analysts said that the upturn was essentially boosted by value appreciation recorded by big-capitalised stocks such as Zenith Bank, UACN, Lafarge Africa and Dangote Cement.
Dangote Cement recorded the highest gain, gaining N3 to close at N168 per share.
Lafarge Africa followed with a gain of N1.61 to close at N82.61, while GT Bank increased by 71k to close at N16.38 per share.
UACN increased by 43k to close at N20.48 and Zenith Bank appreciated by 40k to close at N13.19 per share.
Conversely, Mobil topped the losers’ chart, shedding N8.55 to close at N162.45 per share.
PZ Industries trailed with a loss of N1.20 to close at N22.84, while Nigerian Breweries lost N1 to close at N104 per share.
Union Dicon declined by 56k to close at N10.69 and National Salt Company lost 38k to close at N7.22 per share.
Investors staked N2.07 billion on 412.47 million shares exchanged in 3,285 deals.
This was against the 222.25 million shares worth N1.89 billion translated in 3,558 deals.
Zenith Bank drove the turnover with a total of 50.06 million shares worth N649.269 million.
Fidelity Bank came second with 47.63 million shares valued at N60.171 million, while Afro media exchanged 45.49 million shares valued at N22.75 million.
Multitrex sold 41.19 million shares worth N20.59 million and Standard Insurance traded 23.16 million shares worth N11.68 million.
