Equities trading at the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) resumed the week after the Christmas break with negative tilt with the All-Share Index dipping by 34 basis points to close at 73,768.64 basis points,.
Basically, losses in industrial heavyweight Dangote Cement, Stanbic IBTC Holdings and Dangote Sugar were the primary drivers of the overall market decline as sell-offs of these stocks dipped its value by 2.19 percent, 6.01 percent and 1.31 percent, respectively.
Consequently, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to +3.4 percent and +43.9 percent, respectively.
At the end of the day’s trading activities at the local bourse on Wednesday, equities investors lost N139.34 billion from their overall investments as market capitalization closed at N40.37 trillion.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive despite overall negative outing, as 38 tickers gained relative to 21 losers.
On the performance board, Eterna Oil and Mansard Assurance recorded the most significant gains of the day having appreciated in share values by 10.0 percent respectively, while UACN and Deap Capital topped the losers’ list after their respective share prices dipped by 10.0 percent and 7.3 percent.
Sector-wise, investor sentiment was positive, with the Insurance index leading gainers with a 3.06 percent increase, followed by the Oil/Gas and Banking indexes with mild gains of 0.24 percent and 0.17 percent, respectively.
However, the Consumer and Industrial Goods sectors experienced declines of 0.15 percent and 1.10 percent due to sell-offs.
Analysis of market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 21.99 percent.
A total of 432.91 million shares valued at N12.94 billion were exchanged in 8,901 deals. Jaiz Bank led the volume chart with 35.38 million units traded while Geregu Power led the value chart with deals worth N6.06 billion.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
