Economic growth impacts NSE indices to positive week start

As the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced the Q3 2017 GDP report showing the economy grew farther by 1.4 per cent on Monday, Nigeria’s stock market advanced higher to close in a positive territory.

The growth in GDP is the second consecutive positive growth in the GDP since Q2-2017, supported by a spike in the Oil sector which grew by 25.9 per cent year on year as against a 3.5 in Q2-17

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) lead market index, the All- Share Index (ASI) which fell 1.1 per cent last week, thus settled at 36,792.60 after a growth of 89.02 points or 0.24 per cent on Monday, while the market capitalisation improved by 0.24 per cent or N31bn to close at N12.805 trillion compared to N12.774trn achieved on Friday.

PZ recorded the highest percentage gain of 10.23 per cent to lead the gainers’ table, the stock closed at N24.79 per share. Nascon followed with an increase of 9.59 per cent to close at N15.89, while Diamond Bank rose by 4.55 per cent to close at N1.15 per share.

Conversely, Forte Oil led the laggards’ chart with a loss of 9.73 per cent to close at N43.89 per share.
Flour Mills came second with a loss of 4.99 per cent to close at N33.15, while Law Union was down by 4.62 per cent to close at 62 kobo per share.

The volume of shares traded closed lower as investors bought and sold a total of 208.71 million shares valued at N2.45bn transacted in 2,993 deals. This was against the 1.83 billion shares worth N6.31bn achieved in 3,097 deals on Friday.

Custodian and Allied Insurance was the most active, accounting for 40.46 million shares worth N151.72m, while FBN Holdings sold 27.45 million shares valued at N190.08m.

Fidelity Bank exchanged 23.46 million shares worth N37.54m, while Diamond Bank transacted 16.89 million shares valued at N19.37m.

Zenith International Bank sold 12.78 million shares worth N319m.