First Bank returns as NSE’s the most capitalised stock

According to the monthly stock market review released by the NSE, the bank’s capitalisation of N833.392 billion pushed Intercontinental Bank to the second position on the twenty most capitalised stocks table during the period under review. Intercontinental Bank had emerged as the most capitalised stock in the month of April but closed the month of May with a market capitalization of N802.210 billion.

It was trailed by Zenith bank with a capitalisation of N787.005 billion while UBA’s market capitalization stood at N643.545 billion. Oceanic was fifth with N549.090 billion.

A turnover of 16.8 billion shares worth N232.95 billion in 356,909 deals was recorded during the period, in contrast with 16.5 billion shares valued at N260.7 billion exchanged during April in 394,307 deals. Consequently total turnover in five months (January to May) was 101.83 billion shares valued at n1.48 trillion. In the comparable period in 2007, 50.56 billion units valued at N672 billion were traded.

Further analysis of equities trading during the period showed that the insurance subsector was the most active with traded volume of 8.9 billion shares valued at N26.1 billion in 66,484 deals while the banking subsector was second with traded volume of 5.12 billion shares valued at N152.25 billion units in 171,079 deals.

The market value of the 316 listed securities closed at N14.956 trillion, up by 2.36 percent from N14.61 trillion recorded in the previous month.