At the Nigerian Exchange Limited on Thursday, the local equities ended lower, reversing some of the gains of Wednesday’s session as the benchmark index lost 0.38 percent to close at 67,098.80 basis points.
Sentiments in the Nigerian equities market turned negative as investors took profits off Stanbic IBTC Holdings, among others, leaving its share price lower by 8.5 per cent.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to +1.1 per cent and +30.9 percent, respectively.
Having dipped in value by 0.38 percent, the market capitalisation settled at N36.86 trillion, leaving equities investors with a N139.79 billion loss.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative as 25 tickers lost relative to 16 gainers. On the performance board, MC Nicholas and Omatek recorded the most significant losses of the day after their respective share prices dipped by 8.8 percent and 8.7 percent, while Learn Africa and Daar Communication topped the gainers’ list having appreciated in share value by 10.0 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively.
Across the sectoral front, the sentiment was predominantly negative. Four of the five tracked sectors closed in the negative territory, except for the Oil and Gas sector, which remained unchanged from the previous day.
Consequently, the Banking, Insurance, and Consumer Goods indexes nosedived by 1.08 percent, 1.04 percent, and 0.07 percent, respectively, while the Industrial Goods index was mildly bearish.
Trading activity levels also showed a negative trend, with notable decreases in the total number of deals, trading volume, and value for the day.
Total deals decreased by 13.25 per cent, totaling 5,348 trades, while the traded volume and value saw significant drops of 26.70 percent, reaching 291.40 million units, and 7.10 percent to N4.3.7 billion.
At the close of Thursday’s session, UBA was the most traded security in both volumes and value, with 56.29 million units worth N1.05 billion.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then