July 10, (THEWILL) – Nigerian equities opened the week strong Monday as the benchmark index gained 2.48% to close at 64,603.69 points, the highest point since 17 March 2008, against 63,040.41 recorded last Friday.
Market capitalisation rose to N35.1 trillion from N34.3 trillion on Friday, giving investors cause to rejoice over their N851 billion gain. The year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 26.05%,
The market’s performance was primarily driven by continued demand in MTNN (+1.82% from share price of N280.00), DANGCEM (+10.00% against share price of N330.10 ) and STANBIC (+6.83% from share price of N68) offsetting losses in GTCO (-1.91% against N36.00), WAPCO (-0.17% from 30.10) and NB (-2.52% with share price of N42.00).
Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 59.11% according to Coronation Daily Market Report.
A total of 1.84bn shares valued at ₦22.03bn were exchanged in 14,584 deals. FBNH (+9.85%) led the volume and value charts with 198.22m units traded in deals worth ₦4.42bn.
On the AFEX window, Naira strengthened against the dollar by 5% as it rose to N744.07 on Monday against N776.90 on Friday as traders compete at the now unified forex channels that puts the parallel market (N795/$) at a disadvantage against the I&E window (N744.07), implying that the unification of forex channels may not have the expected impact of pushing the black market dealers out of business. Daily market turnover dropped to $73.42 million against $98.60 million last Friday, a drop of 25.6 percent.
About the Author
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
