Equity transactions rebound, as market closes at N9.454trn

Equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday reversed positively, closing after depreci­ating for two consecutive days with market indicators rebound­ing by 0.07 per cent.

The market capitalisation ap­preciated by N7 billion or 0.07 per cent to close at N9.454 tril­lion against N9.447 trillion achieved on Tuesday, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) re­ported yesterday.

Similarly, the All-Share Index recorded marginal gain, appreci­ating by 18.81 points or 0.07 per cent to close at 27,522.62 com­pared with 27,503.81 recorded on Tuesday.

Guinness recorded the high­est price gain to lead the gainers’ table, growing by N1.88 to close at N97.85 per share.

Seplat came second with a gain of N1.87 to close at N320.2, while Lafarge Wapco appreciat­ed by N1.7 to close at N58 per share.

Unilever increased by N1.01 to close at N40.04 and Nigerian Breweries up by 19k to close at N140.2 per share.

On the other hand, 7UP topped the losers’ chart, drop­ping by N7.24 to close at N137.66 per share. Forte oil trailed with a loss of N6.94 to close at N165.06 per share.

Total Oil shed N1 to close at N240, while Mobil Oil dipped by 72k to close at N170.06 and UACN went down by 7k to close at N20.8 per share.

In the same vein, the volume of shares traded closed higher with an exchange of 295.71mil­lion shares valued at N3.59 bil­lion transacted in 3,709 deals.

This was in contrast with the 1796.78 million shares worth N1.89 billion traded in 3,682 deals on Tuesday.

GTBank drove the turnover volume, having accounted for 68.95 million shares valued at N1.85 billion.

It was followed by Access Bank with a total of 30.76 mil­lion worth N166.34 million and Fidelity Bank sold 26.96 million shares valued at N24.56 million.

UBA Bank traded 26.62 mil­lion shares valued N24.56 mil­lion and Zenith Bank transact­ed 23.14 million shares worth N337.98 million.

Meanwhile, Federal Govern­ment will raise about N952.04 billion ($3.02 billion) with new issues of Treasury bills from Sep­tember 15 to December 1, the Central Bank of Nigeria said on Wednesday in its latest issuance calendar.

The bank said it would sell N264.47 billion worth of three-month bills, 204.88 billion of six-month bills and 482.69 billion of one-year bills.

Nigeria– Pakistan trade volume hits1bn dollars – envoy

By John Okeke

Pakistanis High Commission­er to Nigeria, Umer Farooq said on Wednesday in Abu­ja that Nigeria and Pakistan trade volume has hit the one billion dol­lars mark.

He said this while addressing newsmen during an event organ­ised to mark the national ‘Defence Day’ of Pakistan.

Farooq said that the trade rela­tionship between the two countries was hinged on their existing strong cooperation.

“My country is looking forward to improving bilateral ties with Ni­geria, by December this year we hope to surpass the existing 1 bil­lion dollars trade volume”, he said.

The High Commissioner called on both Pakistan and Nigeria au­thorities to operationalise an al­ready signed Memorandum of Un­derstanding (MoU), on trade and investment, with a view to enhanc­ing economic development.

“I will also want to recommend for the two countries, to put in place right policies that will help in oper­ating these MoU’s in various sectors of our economy”, he said.