By Tokunbo-Peters Oluwaseun
The Nigerian stock market opened the week with Access bank and Zenith bank leading the pack of banks that attracted a huge amount of trades in the Nigerian stock market, roughly estimated to 64.02% of the total value of shares traded on the bourse on Monday.
The banks involved in the huge amount trades of include; UBA with trades in 18.07 million units of shares at N160.69 million across 355 deals, First bank with trades in 22.81 million units of shares at N171.9 million across 353 deals, Guaranty Trust bank with 33.6 million shares at N1.15 billion across 345 deals while Access bank and Zenith bank led with 37.84 million units of shares valued at 408.59 million across 493 deals and 34.99 million units of shares at N790.41 million across 594 deals respectively.
Law Union and Rock Insurance company was the highest equity gainer on the exchange with 10% gain to close at N0.55 with the runner-ups being; Total Nigeria, Cadbury Nigeria plc, Caverton Offshore and Jaiz bank with 9.35% to close at N117, 8.5% to close at N10.85, 6.67% to close at N2.8 and 6.15% to close at N0.69% respectively.
On the flip side, NCR Nigeria Plc ended up being the biggest loser with 9.88% loss to close at N3.65 followed by Nestle Nigeria Plc, Unity bank and Oando which lost 6.12% to close at N1,380, 5.8% to close at N0.65 and 4.86% to close at N3.52 respectively. Courteville capped off the losers list with 4.17% decline to close at N0.23.
Analysts from Afrinvest Securities Limited and Proshare said they expect gains in the stock market to persist. They said there was, however, a possibility for investors to take profit in the near term.