Nigerian stocks stretched gains by N80 billion or 0.61 per cent on Friday, building on the tenuous rally
reported at the previous session, even though the losses seen so far this week outweigh gains.
Against analysts’ expectations, equities have bucked macroeconomic trends for two days now to close
in the positive territory. The announcement by the statistics office on Thursday put the inflation figure
for March at 18.17 per cent, the highest in more than four years.
The advance derived strength from high buy orders on the shares of Guinness, Dangote Cement and
MTNN, with investors’ renewed interest in the telco coming after the Ministry of Communications
and Digital Economy decision to remove the freeze on SIM card sales in Africa’s biggest economy.
Also helping gains, the industrial goods index took the top spot in the pecking order of performance of
the five sectorial indices tracked by the Nigerian Exchange Limited, jumping 1.19 per cent
There were 21 gainers and 12 losers, causing the market to close with a positive breadth
The all-share index rose by 236.12 points to close at 38,801.01 basis points, while market capitalisation
to N20.310 trillion.
Year to date, the index is down by 3.63 per cent.
TOP FIVE GAINERS
Chams led gainers, appreciating by 10 per cent to close at N0.22. Sterling grew by 9.72 per cent to end
trade at N0.79.
Guinness went up by 9.26 per cent to N31.85. NNFM rose to N5.35, notching up 9.18 per cent in the
process. PZ climbed up by 8.43 per cent to N4.50.