At the close of Wednesday’s trading session, the Nigerian Equities market exhibited a notable downturn, as the benchmark index experienced a marginal decline, settling at 98,223.97 basis points.
Notably, selloffs in Tier-1 banking names, Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Holdings Company contributed to the bearish trading outing as these stocks dipped by 2.59 percent, 1.43 percent and 1.98 percent, respectively.
As a result, the Month-to-Date return was flat, while the Year-to-Date return remained at +31.4 per cent.
Equities investors therefore lost N2.56 million at the end of trading activities on Wednesdays, leaving the market capitalization at N55.55 trillion.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative as 19 tickers lost relative to 13 gainers.
On the performance board, leading the losers’ table, were PZ, International Breweries, MCNicholas, Sterling Financial Holdings and Linkage Assurance, with each experiencing significant downward share repricing, recording declines of -10.00 per cent, -9.89 per cent, -9.73 per cent, -9.59 per cent, and -9.41 per cent, respectively.
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On the other hand, Okomu Oil Palm, Tantalizer, Cutix, The Initiates and Wapic Insurance exhibited resilience , emerging as the top gainers for the day, showcasing share price appreciations of 9.98 percent, 8.33 percent, 5.26 percent, 4.76 percent and 4.41 percent, respectively.
Sectoral performance mirrored the overall bearish sentiment, with the Banking, Insurance, Consumer, and Industrial Goods indices all experiencing losses of 1.03 percent, 0.15 percent, 0.27 percent, and 0.22 percent, respectively.
This trading day saw a prevalence of bearish activity, with the Exchange witnessing more decliners than gainers.
Despite subdued trading activity levels, marked by a 15.58 percent decrease in total deals and a 25.04 percent plunge in trading volume, totaling 8,121 trades and 319.08 million units, respectively, there was a notable uptick in traded value, which increased by 9.94 percent to N9.18 billion.
In terms of trading volume, United Bank for Africa led the pack with 79.98 million units transacted in 689 trades, while MTN Nigeria Communication dominated in traded value, recording transactions worth N2.56 billion.
