*Guinness, Nigerian Breweries, Forte Oil   the toast of investors

Equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed upbeat on Monday as the market indicators improved by 2.29 per cent.

The appreciation was due to price gains sustained by some  highly capitalised companies.

As a result of the bullish trading, the market capitalisation closed at N10.437 trillion when compared with N10.203 trillion posted on Friday.

Equally, the All-Share Index increased by 680.89 points, to close at 30,369.97 as against the 29,689.08 achieved on Friday.

Analysis of the price movement chart indicated that Guinness maintained its leading position to top the gainers’ table with N15.58, closing at N167.77 per share.

Nigerian Breweries came second on the activity chart with N6.78, to close at N134.55, while Forte Oil appreciated by N5.65, to close at N228.90 per share.

Seplat advanced by N3.97 to close at N230 and Conoil gained N2.63 to close at N28.41 per share.

On the other hand, Cadbury led the losers’ chart by N1.09 to close at N21.91 per share.

Vanleer trailed with a loss of 51k, to close at N9.86, while Ikeja Hotel dropped. by 18k, to close at N3.61 per share.

Mansard dropped by 12k, to close at N2.35, while Champion lost 11k, to close at N4.49 per share.

A total of 254.70 million shares, worth N3.84 billion, were transacted by investors in 3,798 deals, as against the 201.21 million shares, worth N2.37 billion traded in 3,480 deals on Friday.

The financial services sector remained the toast of investors, with a total of 125.89 million shares, worth N1.23 billion, in 1,306 deals.

The banking sub-sector drove activities in the sector, accounting for 98.64 million shares, valued at N1.09 billion, achieved in 993 deals.