Equities trading at the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) extended gains for the second consecutive session on Thursday, closing higher as the benchmark index gained 0.81 percent to settle at 62,019.88 basis points.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns printed +1.7 percent and +21.0 percent, respectively.
Specifically, industrial heavyweight, Dangote Cement as well as Zenith Bank and Stanbic were the major drivers of the market’s strong performance after the share value appreciated by 1.75 percent, 1.32 percent and 1.67 percent, respectively.
Equities investors, therefore, earned N270.24 billion as the market capitalisation settled at N33.77 trillion by the end of the day’s trading activities.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive as 54 tickers gained relative to 18 losers. Eterna and Union Bank of Nigeria recorded the highest gains of the day having appreciated in share value by 10.0 percent, respectively, while Wapic Insurance and UPDC topped the losers’ list after their respective share value dipped by 9.6 percent and 9.2 percent.
Analysing by sectors, the Oil and Gas, Industrial Goods, and Consumer Goods indices recorded gains by 2.4 percent, 0.9 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, while the Banking and Insurance indices printed losses by 2.5 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.
Activities at the local bourse on Thursday was impressive as analysis of market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 821.84 per cent.
A total of 5.44 billion shares valued at N95.01 billion were exchanged in 9,948 deals. FBN Holdings led the volume and value charts with 4.69 billion units traded in deals worth N87.81 billion.
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