By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Zenith Bank Plc emerged the most active stock traded on the bourse of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for the month of August 2013.

According to reports from Investment One Financial Services monthly investment watch, Zenith Bank ruled the market in terms of volume and value of transactions consummated during the month with 554 million shares valued at N11.49 billion  exchanging hands in favour of the bank, representing 9.13 percent (9.13%) and 16.9% of what the entire market traded.

Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (Transcorp), United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) and FBN Holdings Plc (FBNH) followed closely on the volume table with 9.09%, 7.45% and 6.29% respectively.

Next to Zenith Bank on the top value traded chart are Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTBank), FBNH and Nigerian Breweries Plc (NB Plc) accounted for 9.61%, 9.26% and 8.93% of total market value respectively.

The report said volume and value of transactions consummated declined month-on-month as daily trades were dominated by very conservative bid sides. “From 14.58 billion shares exchanged in July, volume dropped by 58.44% to 6.06 billion shares just as transactions value fell by 10% to N67.82 billion. On average, 303 million units of stocks worth N3.391 billion exchanged hands daily, down from 634 million units valued at N3.28 billion in the preceding month,” the report said.

The Investment One monthly investment watch report said equities suffered as investors’ exercised caution.

On the all-share index (ASI) the report affirmed that the Nigerian bourse closed in the red during the month as the benchmark index shed 4.39% relative to the gain of 4.84% recorded in July.

The report further affirmed that trading ended negative in 13 out of 20 sessions, thus compressing year –to- date (YtD) return to 29.1% from 35.03% last month by the closing bell.

According to the Investment One report, from 38,292 points on the first trading day of the month, the ASI fell to 37,813 points a week later and then trended further downward but seemed to form a support around the 36,200 territory.

“In the 20 days, the ASI traded a high of 38,424 points and finally settled at its low of 36,248.53 points,” the report said.

The report said as barometers of market activities, all the sector indexes recorded negative returns (-5.08% on average), weakening the average gain of 8.2% posted in the preceding month.

“The Oil & Gas component suffered the biggest loss, shedding 8.01% on aggregate. The Industrials seconded with a loss of 7.10% and followed by the Consumer Goods index which dipped by 4.73%. This shows that it was actually a harvest period for investors as these sectors were incidentally the top gainers (20.85%, 11.67% and 5.22% respectively) last month,” the report affirmed.

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