The nation’s external reserves continued its rise from the December 2016 rebound, growing by $314.997 million or 1.21% to $26.218 billion according to data on the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for Thursday, January 5, 2017 from $25.843 billion on December 30, 2016.
On a month-on-month (MoM) basis, Nigeria’s reserves pool increased by $1.288 billion or 5.16% from $24.93 billion value reported for the corresponding period of December 2016.
However, the week’s rise helped to reduce the year-on-year loss to $8.274 billion or 23.98% from $34.493 billion on January 5, 2016.
Meanwhile, at the close of trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for the (three-day) first week of the New Year on Friday, the composite All-Share index fell by 623.23 points or 2.32% from 26,874.62 to 26,251.39 basis points, just as all the sectoral indices closed in the red, led by the premium index, which suffered the deepest cut of 3.19%. This was followed by the 3.02% decline by the NSE Industrial Goods index; while the NSE Consumer Goods and Lotus II indices closed 2.28% and 2.24% down respectively. The NSE Banking index shaved 2.05% off; Main board index, 1.78%; ASeM index, 1.67%; NSE Oil/Gas, 1.64%; NSE banking index, 1.57%; Pension index, 0.24%; among others.
The National Aviation Handling Company lost 13.92% of its share price it opened the year with; followed by the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria, 13.40%; N.E.M Insurance Co, 9.52%; Sterling Bank, 7.89%; Cadbury Nigeria, 7.68%; and Union Bank, 5.09%. Mobil Oil Nigeria shed 5%; Dangote Flour Mills, 4.94%; Ashaka Cement, 4.91%; and Custodian & Allied, 4.88%.
The gainers’ side was led by UACN Property Development Company with 14.5% notch; ahead of United Capital, 10.62%; Access Bank, which on Thursday raised investors’ hope for a dividend as its directors consider the 2016 audited result in the last week of January grabbed 6.98%; ahead of Eterna Plc, one of the 18 Nigeria firms that won the bid to lift oil in the 2017/18 bid-round for crude oil contract as announced by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
FCMB Group chalked 6.36%; Unity Bank, 5.45%; FBN Holdings, 4.48%; United Bank for Africa, 4%; Fidson Healthcare, 3.91%; while Chemical & Allied Products made the week’s top 10 gainers for the week after chalking 3.13%.
