The bears continued dominance of the Nigerian stock market on Thursday as it closed the trading session with the benchmark index NGX All-Share Index declining by 0.38 percent to close at 97,651.23 points.
The downward trend was mirrored in market capitalization, which fell by 0.38 percent to ₦59.17 trillion, causing investor losses of approximately ₦225.4 billion due to increased sell-offs.
In the face of the overall negative sentiment, there were 24 advancing stocks, while 26 declined.
Leading the gainers were SUNO SASUR, EUNISELL, UPL, CORNEST, and PRESTIGE, whereas the top losers included VERITASKAP, ARADEL, NSLTECH, RTBRISCOE, and BETAGLAS.
Sectoral performance was mixed. The consumer goods and industrial goods sectors both recorded declines, falling by 0.06 percent and 0.09 percent, respectively. However, the banking, insurance, and oil/gas sectors saw gains, rising by 0.28 percent, 1.12 percent, and 1.27 percent respectively.
Trading activity reflected the subdued market sentiment, with the number of deals, trading volume, and value dropping by 9.72 percent, 0.40 percent, and 34.57 percent, respectively.
In total, 536.79 million shares were traded across 9,053 deals, amounting to ₦10.01 billion in value.
UBA led trading volume with 74.2 million units worth ₦2.19 billion across 512 deals.