The gains recorded in the stocks of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc (25 per cent), Glaxo Smithkline Consumer Nigeria Plc (20.27 per cent) and Nigerian Breweries (16.44 per cent) drove the Nigerian Exchange Limited All-Share Index up by 0.22 per cent at the end of last week.

This resulted in a gain of N77bn for investors as the market capitalisation stood at N35.48tn, compared to N35.4tn from the previous week. The All-Share Index rose to 65,198.08 from 65,056.39. Similarly, the year-to-date returns appreciated to 27.10 per cent.

All other indices finished higher except for NGX main board, NGX CG, NGX banking, NGX AFR bank value, NGX MERI growth, NGX MERI value and NGX oil and gas indices, which depreciated by 0.07 per cent, 0.06 per cent, 2.13 per cent, 1.85 per cent, 2.43 per cent, 0.78 per cent, and 0.68 per cent respectively. The NGX ASeM index closed flat.

A total of 2.575 billion shares worth N29.615bn in 37,713 deals was traded last week by investors on the floor of the exchange, in contrast to a total of 2.854 billion shares valued at N37.645bn that exchanged hands the previous week in 41,547 deals.

Financial services industry, measured by volume, maintained its dominance on the activity chart with 1.921 billion shares valued at N16.514bn traded in 17,689 deals.