The equities market grew by 1 basis point expanding from Wednesday’s 99,385.44 basis points to settle at 99,396.23 basis points after the close of trading on Thursday.
Investor’s interest in SEPLAT ENERGY PLC (+10.00%), alongside sustained interest in Tier-1 banking names; GUARANTY TRUST HOLDING COMPANY PLC (+1.25%) and FBN HOLDINGS PLC (+2.90%) offset the losses in MTN NIGERIA COMMUNICATIONS PLC (-6.89%), ZENITH BANK PLC (-0.56%) and PRESCO PLC (-1.34%).
Market capitalisation gained ₦6.19bn to close at ₦56.23trn even as the Month-to-date and Year-to-Date returns remained unchanged at +0.1% and +32.9%, respectively.
Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions advancing by 154.67% while the total trading volume increased by 91.6%.
A total of 529.37 million units, valued at ₦10.49 billion, were exchanged in 7,616 deals where GUARANTY TRUST HOLDING COMPANY PLC led the volume and value chart with 66.05 million units traded in deals worth ₦2.93 billion.
Market breadth closed positive with 33 advancing issues outnumbering the 16 declining ones.
CUTIX PLC(+10.0%) and SEPLAT ENERGY PLC (+10.0%) topped the gainers’ list, while DAAR COMMUNICATIONS PLC (-8.9%) and C & I LEASING PLC. (-8.5%) recorded the highest losses of the day.
From a sectoral perspective, the Oil and Gas (+5.7%), Banking (+1.1%), Consumer Goods (+0.2%), and Insurance (+0.1%) indices advanced, while the industrial goods index remained flat.
