After four consecutive days of gains, the local bourse paused its bullish streak on Thursday as selloffs of Geregu, triggered a 0.2 per cent decline in the benchmark Index.
Specifically, consumer goods and banking stocks were particularly hard hit, with investors booking profits on tickers such as Unilever Nigeria, PZ, Geregu, Guaranty Trust Holding Company and Access Holdings leaving these companies’ share prices lower by 8.28 per cent, 6.11 per cent, 4.78 per cent and 1.35 per cent.
Thus, the All-Share-Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) settled at 52,821.60 basis points.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to +0.8 per cent and +3.1 per cent, respectively.
Owing to the bearish trade, equities investors lost N50.70 billion as the market capitalisation closed at N28.76 trillion at the end of the day’s trading activities.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was mixed, as 23 tickers lost relative to 22 gainers. Conoil and Unilever Nigeria topped the losers’ list having depreciated in share value by 9.9 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively, while FTN Cocoa Processor and Tantalizer recorded the most significant gains of the day after their share values appreciated by 8.8 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively.
Performance across the remaining sectorial indices tracked closed negative, with the NGX Banking, NGX Insurance, NGX Consumer Goods, and NGX Industrial indices declining by 0.11 per cent, 0.08 per cent, 0.14 per cent and 0.07 per cent, respectively.
Analysis of market activities on Thursday showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 17.16 per cent. A total of 377.14 million shares valued at N9.18 billion were exchanged in 5,879 deals.
United Bank for Africa led the volume chart with 86.17 million units traded while Geregu led the value chart in deals worth N3.92 billion.
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