The positive rally on the local bourse continued for the fourth consecutive session this week as the benchmark index inched upward above the 100,000 mark by 0.75% to 100,335.30 points amid weakening interest in banking stocks.
The shares of FBN Holdings Plc, Ecobank Transational Plc and Zenith Bank alongside some Insurance stocks were dumped by investors.
This comes as investors continue their strong demand for Consumer goods stocks with strong fundamentals.
Also, the market capitalisation of listed equities advanced on Thursday by 0.75% to N56.73 trillion, driving the year-to-date return of the index upward to 34.2% even as the exchange recorded fewer winners (26) as against the laggards (33) while investors’ wealth improved by the sum of N420.5 billion.
The level of market activity on Thursday was in a mixed trend as the total traded volume soared by 33.19 percent to 554.72 million units while the total traded value tanked by 9.11 percent to N17.73 billion, despite a 3.96 percent uptick in the total deals, to 9,708 trades in today’s session.
Across sectors, the performance remained bearish as investor sentiments waned notably in the Banking, and Insurance indexes, which recorded declines of 2.57 percent, and 0.15 percent respectively, as investors dumped key stocks like FBNH, ETI, ZENITH, NEM, SUSNUASSUR and LINKASSURE.
On the flip side, the Consumer goods and Industrial goods indexes closed northward by 0.62% and 0.01 percent as investors’ interest stayed positive in stocks such as MTNN, DANGSUGAR, TRANSPOWER, JULI and CAVERTON.
Meanwhile, the Oil & Gas index remained unchanged from the previous close.
In terms of individual stocks performance, MTNN (10.00%), DANGSUGAR (10.00%), TRANSPOWER (9.99%); JULI (9.73%), and NASCON (9.92%) continued to attract increased interest for potential upward pricing, while GUINNESS (10.00%), FTNCOCOA (1 0.00%), TRANSCORP (9.95%), IKEJAHOTEL (9.93%), and ETI (7.83%) experienced adverse price movements with material sell-offs. Closing out the session, TRANSCORP emerged as the most traded security by volume and value on Thursday with 301.36 million units traded in 2,184 trades and valued at N5.65 billion.
