LAGOS –  Equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for the third consecutive day maintained an upbeat trend as the market indicators improved further by 2.55 per cent.
The report state the appreciation was due to price gains sustained by some highly capitalised firms.
As a result of the bullish trading, the market capitalisation closed higher at N9.73 trillion from the N9.49 trillion posted on Tuesday.
Equally, the All-Share Index increased by 724.98 points to close at 29,177.58 as against the 28,452.60 achieved on Tuesday.
Analysis of the price movement chart showed that Seplat topped the gainers’ table by N12 to close at N416 per share.
Dangote Cement came second on the activity chart with N5.80 to close at N155, while Guinness appreciated by N5.63 to close at N124.70 per share.
Nigerian Breweries advanced by N2.37 to close at N132.37 and Lafarge Wapco gained N2.04 to close at N80.10 per share.
On the other hand, Forte Oil led the losers’ chart by N4.94 to close at N215.06 per share.
Julius Berger trailed with a loss of N2.07 to close at N40.11, while Flour Mill dropped N1.09 to close at N29.30 per share.
Unilever dropped N1.01 to close at N33, while International Breweries lost 97k to close at N18.44 per share.
However, 424.325 million shares worth N3.49 billion were transacted by investors in 4,731 deals as against the 500.191 million shares worth N3.49 billion traded in 4,199 deals on Tuesday.
The decrease in the volume of shares traded represented 15.17 per cent.
Access Bank emerged the most traded stock, accounting for 115.13 million shares worth N637.64 million in 140 deals.
UBA followed with a total of 59.63 million shares valued N10.19 million in 307 deals, while Diamond Bank exchanged 45.29 million shares worth N161.14 million in 135 deals.