BY FESTUS OKOROMADU, ABUJA
The Nigerian Capital Market closed southward at mid-week, retreating from previous day’s gains by 0.43 percent, with the benchmark index crashing to 66,482.28 points.
Resultantly, the overall market capitalization decreased by 0.43 percent to N36.39 trillion, translating to loss of N158.01 billion in Naira terms on the back of the sell-offs in the banking and industrial goods sector, resulting in a year-to-date gain of 29.72 percent.
Meanwhile, this downturn was prompted by waning investors’ sentiments in MTNN, WEMABANK, NAHCO and IKEJAHOTEL as their respective share prices trended downward by 4, 10, 2 and 10 percent respectively.
The negative trend dominated the market despite more stocks recording gains as the market 29 equities advancing as against 22 declining.
Sectoral performance was varied as two sectors gained as against two that lost while one stayed unchanged.
Thus, the Insurance and Consumer goods sectors posted marginal gains of 0.28 percent and 0.18 percent, while the Banking and Industrial Goods sectors saw losses by a paltry 2bps and 1bp and then the Oil & Gas index remained unchanged.
Market activity remained robust, with an increase in both the total volume and value by 80.48 percent and 19.38 percent to 657.52 million units valued at N4.59 billion while the total trades for the day decreased 11.82% to 6,646 deals.
The session’s top trading volume was led by UNIVINSURE, with 336.29 million units valued at N80.46 million, involving 55 trades.
