Year-to-date Growth Hits 39.6% as Stock Market Rebounds

Goddy Egene and Nosa Alekhuogie

The stock market returned to positive territory yesterday as it reversed the negative performance of the first trading day of the week. The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI) rose by 0.68 per cent to close higher at 37,503.73, driving the year-to-date (YTD) growth to 39.6 per cent.

Similarly, market capitalisation added N88.1 billion to close at N13.1 trillion.

The positive performance was driven by appreciation recorded in the share prices of Nigerian Breweries, Stanbic IBTC, Access Bank, UBA and Dangote Cement among others.

However, Eterna Plc led the price gainers with 4.99 per cent trailed by Global Spectrum Energy Services (GSES) Plc with a gain of 4.95 per cent to close at N5.51 per share.

This means that the stock, which got listed on the NSE on Monday at N5.00 has appreciated by over 9.3 per cent within the first two days of trading.

A total of 800 million shares of GSES were listed on the NSE, which added N4 billion to the market capitalisation of the exchange.

The price growth signified the positive sentiments investors have for the stock.

The Managing Director/ CEO of GSES, Mr. Colm Doyle on Monday disclosed to shareholders that the company was embarking on expansion and diversification of its product base to further strengthen its business capacity and profitability.

Doyle said that apart from the expansion, the firm has also decided to give out minimum of 30 per cent of its profit before tax as dividend to its shareholders.

According to him, the company has acquired a prime waterfront site in Port Harcourt for the development of a 50 million litres capacity tank farm with storage capac- ity for refined petroleum PMS, AGO, DPK and a 6.000 metric tonnes LPG storage facilities.

He also added that the company in conjunction with its partners, Aegean Marine Petroleum in Greece will develop 10,000 metric ton ultra-modern lubricants blending plant as well as a state of the art laboratory situated at the tank farm site in Port Harcourt.