At the Nigerian Exchange Limited, on Thursday, equities trading went southwards, shedding some of the previous gains as the benchmark All-Share Index (ASI) closed 0.10 per cent weaker at 44,239.49 basis points.
Consequently, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date return settled at +0.9 per cent and +3.6 per cent, respectively.
Equities investors, therefore, lost N24.12 billion as the market capitalisation settled lower by 0.1 per cent to close at N24.10 trillion.
On Thursday, the overall bearish sentiment followed profit-taking activities in Geregu, having lost 3.6 per cent from its share value; also losses in Zenith Bank and FBN Holdings were part of the main drivers of the market performance as the share prices of the financial institutions appreciated by 0.25 per cent and 1.00 per cent, respectively.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative as 18 tickers lost relative to 11 gainers.
On the performance board, Prestige Insurance and Caverton topped the losers’ list as their respective share prices depreciated by 9.8 per cent and 9.4 per cent, while UPDCreit and Transnational Express recorded the highest gains of the day as the share values appreciated by 9.1 per cent and 8.8 per cent, respectively.
Sectoral performance was mixed, as the Insurance, Oil & Gas, and Consumer Goods indices printed losses after depreciating in value by 1.0 per cent, 1.0 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively, while the Banking index closed higher by 0.1 per cent. The Industrial Goods index was flat.
Analysis of market activities for the day showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 24.86 per cent.
The total volume traded on Thursday increased by 38.5 per cent to 215.15 million units, valued at N1.91 billion, and exchanged in 3,389 deals. Access Corporation was the most traded stock by volume and value at 112.33 million units and N892.56 million, respectively.
ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then