Nigerian stocks closed Tuesday trade mostly unchanged as the benchmark index showed 0 per cent movement, approaching a break-even point, after two consecutive trading days in the red.
Equities on Lagos Custom Street witnessed a slump of nearly one-fifth in trade volume compared to a day earlier hours after the statistics office announced that the inflation figure for January, at 15.6 per cent barely improved over that of the month before.
At the pace of 1.51 per cent, the Insurance Index accelerated the most of the five sector indexes tracked by the exchange, thanks to a surge of interest in the shares of Aiico Insurance, NEM and Veritas Kapital.
Learn Africa, one of the top picks on PREMIUM TIMES stock investment guide for this week, ranked for the second straight day among the peak performers, gaining 9.7 per cent this time.
Market breadth, which measures the depth of investors’ sentiment to trade, closed in the positive, with 28 losers advancers recorded compared to 21 laggards.
The all-share index dipped 2 basis points to 47,064.82, while market capitalisation closed at N25.4 trillion.
Between January and now, the index is up 10.2 per cent.
TOP FIVE GAINERS
Learn Africa led the gainers’ chart, appreciating by 9.7 per cent to close at N1.81. Morison went up by 9.6 per cent to N2.18. RT Briscoe rose to N0.46, notching up 9.52 per cent. Veritas Kapital added 9.5 per cent to end trade at N0.23. NASCON completed the top 5, climbing by 9.4 per cent to N14.50.
READ ALSO: Nigerian stocks halt gains, down by N21 billion
TOP FIVE LOSERS
Berger Paints led losers, declining by 9.6 per cent to close at N7.55. Consolidated Hallmark shed 4.6 per cent to close at N0.62. Jaiz fell to N0.67, losing 4.3 per cent. International Breweries slumped to N5.10, recording 2.9 per cent decline. ETI closed at N12.15, going down by 2.8 per cent.
TOP FIVE TRADES
Access Bank was the most active stock with 55.4 million of its shares worth N576.5 million traded in 313 deals. Guinness traded 16.7 million shares priced at N1.2 billion in 580 transactions. Japaul had 14 million shares valued at N5.1 million traded in 69 deals. Sterling Bank traded 13.3 million shares estimated at N22.6 million in 150 transactions. ETranzact traded 13.1 million shares valued at N26.2 million in 3 deals.
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