Kehinde Akinseinde -Jayeoba
At the close of equities trading on Tuesday, the domestic bourse All-Share Index (ASI) rebounded by 0.03 per cent to settle at 54,904.68 basis points despite the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) reviewing the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) upwards to 18.00 per cent from 17.50 per cent.
Having snapped out of seven consecutive sessions of losses, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns were unchanged at -1.6 per cent and +7.1 per cent, respectively.
Investors’ interest in Zenith Bank, Lafarge Africa and Stanbic IBTC Holdings drove the market’s recovery, having appreciated by 1.41 per cent, 2.17 per cent and 0.68 per cent, respectively.
Equities investors, therefore, earned N8.82 billion as the market capitalisation settled at N29.91 trillion at the end of the day’s trading sessions.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was mixed, as an equal number of 12 tickers gained and lost.
On the performance board, Linkage Assurance and Wapic Insurance recorded the most significant gains of the day having appreciated on share value by 9.7 per cent and 7.9 per cent, while Ikeja Hotels and Cadbury topped the losers’ list after their respective share prices dipped by 9.6 per cent and 5.8 per cent, respectively.
Sectorial performance was positive as three of the five sub-sector gauges tracked closed northward; the NGX Banking, NGX Insurance, and NGX Industrial indices rose by 0.36 per cent, 1.30 per cent, and 0.11 per cent, respectively.
On the other hand, the NGX Consumer Goods index declined by 0.12 per cent, while the NGX Oil/Gas index stayed flat. In broad and narrow markets, the NGX Premium and NGX-30 indexes increased by nine basis points and one basis point, respectively, while the NGX Mainboard index was moderated by one basis point.
Analysis of market activities on Tuesday indicated trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 44.84 per cent. A total of 127.74 million shares valued at N1.59 billion were exchanged in 2,987 deals. United Bank for Africa led the volume with 19.60 million units while Zenith Bank led the value chart in deals worth N298.84 million.
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