BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
The domestic bourse ended its two-day winning streak on Thursday as the benchmark index shed 1.32 percent to close at 59,195.21 points.
Investors in the market lost N430.10 billion as market capitalization closed at N32.23 trillion while the year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 15.50 percent.
Selloffs in telco heavyweight, MTNN (-3.83%), as well as ZENITHBANK (-5.18%), and GTCO (-5.49%), underpinned the market’s weak performance despite gains in FBNH (+0.94%), ETI (+0.33%) and FIDELITYBNK (+3.29%).
Accordingly, the market remains on track for another weekly gain.
Analysis of Thursday’s market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 27.14 percent.
A total of 1.17billion units of shares valued at N15.36 billion were exchanged in 12,611 deals. UBA (-7.11%), led the volume chart with 192.83million units traded, while GTCO (-5.49%) led the value chart in deals worth N3.33billion.
Market breadth closed negative at a 1.26-to-1 ratio with declining issues outnumbering advancing ones. CORNERST (-9.73%) topped 28 others on the laggard’s log, while TOTAL (+10.00%) led 22 others on the leader’s table.