Memories of nasdaq 5000
Friday October 12, 2:19 pm Eastern Time
Nigerian bourse hit all-time high, Wapco leads
LAGOS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The Nigerian Stock Exchange hit an all-time high Friday after nine straight sessions of gains.
The All-Share Index rose 98.58 points to close at 11,175.89, beating the previous peak of 11,099.33 recorded on June 27.
The session's biggest gainers were West African Portland Cement Co. (Wapco) and the market's most capitalised, Nigerian Breweries Plc , luring reluctant sellers that were also interested in capital gains.
``Everyone is conscious of the growth potential of the market and the possibility of making more gains on their investment, and they will not want to be rushed into selling,'' Sehinde Adenagbe, a dealer at Midas Securities, said.
Wapco rose 4.9 percent to close at 29.92 naira, while Nigerian Breweries gained 2.2 percent at 35.50. Unilever Nigeria jumped 4.2 percent to close at 27.41 naira.
First Bank of Nigeria and PZ Industries were the hardest hit of the decliners. First Bank lost 4.5 percent to close at 24.10 naira, and PZ Industries dropped 3.8 percent to 12.02 naira.
Volume dipped, with 18.20 million shares worth 206.24 million naira ($1.85 million) traded in 1,857 deals. In the previous session, 29 million shares valued at 553.9 million naira ($4.96 million) changed hands in 1,992 deals on Thursday.
The market's capitalisation closed at 660.74 billion naira ($5.92 billion) compared with last session's 654.91 billion naira ($5.87 billion).
($1 equals 111.60 naira) |
