GTBank, FBNH, Fidelity, 2 others boost stock market

Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, FBN Holdings, Fidelity Bank, Transnational Corporation and Access Bank boosted trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange by N3.91 billion on Thursday.

While GTBank earned the most actively-traded stock today with 44.6 million shares valued at N1.2 billion in 245 deals, FBN Holdings Plc was next with 17.3 million valued at N93.6 million Plc traded in 179 deals.

Fidelity Bank with 11.2 million shares valued at N19 million traded in 52 deals, followed by TransCorp and Access Bank, with 9.8 million shares valued at N9.9 million traded in 62 deals and 9.3 million shares valued at N69.1 million traded in 216 deals respectively.

Meanwhile, Ecobank Transnational Inc, Cement Company of Northern Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries, 11Plc (MOBIL) and Flour Mill Nigeria led the gainers’ chart at the end of trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) today.

While Ecobank Transnational Inc earned the best-performing stock, as it gained 8.28% to close at N7.85, Cement Co Northern Nigeria Plc gained 5.81% to close at N16.4, Nigerian Breweries Plc, 11 Plc (MOBIL), Flourmill Nigeria, gained 2.76% to close at N50.35, 0.72% to close at N140, 2.74% to close at N15 respectively.

Trading at the bourse ended Thursday in negative territory as the All-Share Index closed at 27,085.69 basis points, down by 0.84%.

Nestle Plc was the worst-performing stock, dropped by 9.99% to close at N1255.5. Beta Glass Plc fell by 9.96% to close at N53.8. Unilever Nigeria Plc fell by 7.68% to close at N53.8. Guinness Nigeria Plc fell by 3.24% to close at N32.9. Dangote Sugar Plc rounded off the top five losers for the day. It shed 2.31% to close at N10.55.

In another related development, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) fined Conoil Plc, Unity Bank, Fidelity Bank, Med-View Airline, Union Bank, Flour Mills of Nigeria, Lasaco Assurance Plc, Academy Press Plc and 37 others to the tune of N487.7 million over their failure to file their financial statements to the bourse.

While FTN Cocoa Processors was fined N78.9 million, Union Dicon Salts, Universal Insurance, Niger Insurance, Union Bank, Veritas Kapital Alliance, Conoil and Standard Alliance were slapped with N30.8 million, N19.5, N14.3 million, N4.7 million, N27.3 million, N17.6 million, and N28.1 million fines among others for similar defaults.

The firms mentioned above are among the 51 quoted companies the Exchange placed cautionary red alert as they had failed to comply fully with the comprehensive listing and corporate governance standards at the stock market.

A regulatory report obtained at the weekend flagged the deficient companies with warning codes that indicated various degrees of corporate governance weaknesses, susceptibility to illiquidity and price manipulation due to inadequate price discovery. Some of the stocks were also on delisting watch list of the NSE.