BUSINESS Mixed reactions trail equity trading in April

Trading activities on equity listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) recorded mixed performance at the end of April.

The market capitalisation which opened the month of April with N12.446trn closed at N12.672trn on April 30, translating to an appreciation of N226bn.

On the other hand, the NSE All Share Index closed lower at 38,492.13 points at the end of April 2014 from 38,748.01 points it opened the month, representing 255.88 basis point depreciation.

Meanwhile, the equities in the first four months of the year recorded a decline of N554bn (or 4.19 per cent) from N13.226trn to N12.672trn, while the All Share Index also declined by 2,837.06 basis points to end April with 38,492.13 points from 41,329.19 points it opened the year.

At the end of April trading four sectoral indexes closed lower while four also closed higher.

The NSE Industrial Goods recorded the highest drop of 3.93 per cent followed by NSE Lotus Islamic Index with 2.72 per cent drop, NSE Consumer Goods with 1.36 per cent drop while Alternative Securities Market (ASem) Index closed lower with 0.15 per cent.

NSE Oil & Gas Index recorded highest gain of 10.99 per cent, followed by NSE Banking Index with 4.93 per cent, NSE Insurance Index with 2.18 per cent gain while NSE 30 index closed with 0.32 per cent.

Meanwhile, the index movement depreciated last week as the NSE All-Share Index and market capitalization depreciated by 0.72 per cent to close on Friday at 38,578.78 and N12.700trn respectively.

All indices depreciated during the week with the exception of the NSE ASeM that closed flat.

At the end of the week, a turnover of 1.099 billion shares worth N13.393bn in 19,078 deals were traded by investors on the floor of the Exchange in contrast to a total of 2.059 billion shares valued at N27.839bn that exchanged hands previous week in 20,413 deals.