Equities market dips marginally despite robust activity

The Nigerian equities market closed marginally lower after Thursday’s proceedings, as the All-Share Index (ASI) moderated by 0.01 per cent to close at 30,738.92 points amid renewed profit-taking activity.

Hence, the year to date gain of the NSE ASI lowered to 14.51 per cent, just as the market capitalisation shed N6.67 billion to close at N16.062 trillion.

Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was slightly positive, as 18 stocks gained, relative to 17 losers with Transnational Corporation leading the advancers’ table having gained 9.9 per cent, followed by Learn Africa that appreciated by 9.5 per cent.

Conversely, Linkage Assurance and ABC Transport recorded the largest losses of the day after the share declined by 8.9 per cent and 8.8 per cent respectively.

Notably, the overall performance of the local bourse on Thursday was attributable to sell-offs on counters such as BUA Cement, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated and Flour mills of Nigeria moderated their respective share prices by 0.11 per cent, 0.97 per cent and 2.82 per cent respectively.

However, the sectorial performance moved in different directions; the NSE Banking and NSE Oil/Gas indices rose by 0.06 per cent and 0.04 per cent respectively, while the NSE Insurance and NSE Consumer Goods indices declined by 0.65 per cent and 0.53 per cent respectively. The NSE Industrial index closed flat.

Meanwhile, market activity was upbeat as the total volume and value of stocks traded rose by 50.16 per cent and 113.89 per cent to 430.12 million units and N6.6 billion respectively.

By the end of day trade on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), FBN Holdings was the most traded stock by volume at 61.49 million units, while BUA Cement was the most traded stock by value at N2.28 billion, respectively.

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