BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
In its third session of week, the benchmark index slid further by 2.31 percent to settle at 44,318.15 points on Wednesday – the lowest point since 11 January. Extended selloffs in telco heavyweight, AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%) as well as MTNN (-2.01%) were the major drivers of the market’s weak performance.
In addition, losses in Tier-1 banking names, ZENITHBANK (-0.25%) GTCO (-0.54%) and UBA (-0.71%) contributed to keep the market in the red. Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 3.75%, while the market capitalization shed N570.74bn to close at N24.14trn.
Analysis of Wednesday’s market activities showed that trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 1.36 percent. A total of 165.35m units of shares valued at N3.67bn were exchanged in 3,183 deals. FBNH (+1.57%) led the volume chart with 48.09m units traded while AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%) led the value chart in deals worth N1.15bn.
Market breadth closed positive at a 1.1-to-1 ratio, with advancing ones outnumbering declining ones. FIDELITYBK (+9.74%) led fifteen (15) others on the gainer’s table, while AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%) topped fourteen (14) others on the laggard’s log.
