Nigerian Stock Exchange’s Turnover Rises by N192bn

Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday rose to seven week high after 21 stocks closed with gains.

The NSE market capitalization rose from N8.544tn to N8.736tn, while All Share Index tracked by Bloomberg grew to 25,396.83 basis points from 24,838.31 recorded on Tuesday. A total of 275.087 shares worth N1.638bn was traded in 3,344 deals.

The highest index point recorded in the course of trading was 25,396.83 basis points, while the lowest and average index points were 24,042.73 and 24,615.48 basis points, respectively.

The gain in the market was largely boosted by Dangote Cement Plc after the company proposed to increase its full-year dividend by 33 per cent to N8 per share.

The other four top gainers were Tiger Branded Consumer Goods Plc, Oando Plc, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc and Eterna Plc.

Shares in Dangote Cement, which accounts for a third of the total market capitalisation of the bourse’s constituents, rose by seven per cent to 162 naira after its two per cent rise in pretax profit for 2015 and dividend increase.

Nigeria’s all-share index, which has the second-biggest weighting behind Kuwait on the MSCI frontier market index, was up 2.5 percent at 25,448 points, its highest level since January 13.