On Wednesday at the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX), the local bourse index advanced by 0.48% to close at 52,621.19 points following sustained buying interest in banking shares.
Specifically, stocks such as Transnational Corporation, Unilever, PZ, First Bank of Nigeria Holdings, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Zenith Bank and Guaranty Trust Holding Company increased by 9.85 per cent, 9.70 per cent, 8.82 per cent, 7.54 per cent, 5.33 per cent, 2.08 per cent, and 2.03 per cent, respectively.
Accordingly, the NGX ASI closed 0.6% higher to 52,927.60 points, Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns of the ASI settled at +1.0 per cent and +3.3 per cent, respectively.
At the end of the day’s trading activities, equities investors earned N166.84 billion as the market capitalisation settled higher at N166.84 billion.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive, as 36 tickers gained relative to 17 losers. On the performance board, Nestle Nigeria and TrippleG topped the gainers’ list having appreciated in share value by 10.0 per cent and 9.9 per cent, respectively, while Chellaram and McNicholas recorded the highest losses of the day after their respective share prices dipped by 9.8 per cent and 9.6 per cent.
Sectorial performance was positive, as four of the five indices tracked closed in the green zone: the NGX Banking, NGX Consumer Goods, NGX Oil/Gas, and NGX Industrial indices climbed by 1.55 per cent, 0.35 per cent, 0.04 per cent, and 0.02 per cent, respectively. However, the NGX Insurance index fell marginally by 0.01 per cent.
Analysis of market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 51.55 per cent. A total of 455.18 million shares valued at N7.83 billion were exchanged in 6,635 deals.
Access Holdings led the volume chart with 69.19 million units traded while Seplat Energy led the value chart in deals worth N1.84 billion.
