Equities: Banking stocks gain rebounds market by 0.13 per cent

The Nigerian equity market closed higher with a gain of 0.13 per cent, on Thursday, following bargain hunting on Banking stock.

Basically, the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) increased by 27.99 absolute points, representing a growth of 0.13 per cent to close at 21,757.47 points.

Similarly, the overall Market Capitalisation size gained N15.20 billion, representing a growth of 0.13 per cent to close at N11.34 trillion. Consequently, the Year to Date loss of the ASI moderated to 18.94 per cent.

Market breadth closed positive with 24 gainers against eight losers even as the share prices of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Union Bank of Nigeria, Access Bank and United Bank for Africa rose by 5.26 per cent, 10.00 per cent, 9.82 per cent and 7.29 per cent respectively thus, lifting the NSE Banking index by 5.99 per cent.

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However, real sector companies did not enjoy investor’s favour today as the NSE Consumer Goods, NSE Oil/Gas and NSE Industrial declined by 4.61 per cent, 0.21 per cent and 0.16 per cent respectively.

As against market breadth, market activity was weak as volume and value of stocks traded fell further by 26.26 per cent and 15.73 per cent to 0.17 billion units and N1.89 billion respectively.