Wednesday’s trading session on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX ended with the benchmark index slipping 0.05% attributed mainly to losses in FBN HOLDINGS PLC which declined 3.33%.
Also, profit taking activities in ACCESS HOLDINGS PLC (-1.20%) and LAFARGE AFRICA PLC (-0.41%) offset buying interest in Tier-1 banking names, ZENITH BANK PLC (+0.76%), STANBIC IBTC HOLDINGS PLC(+1.69%) and UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA PLC (+1.38%).
Consequently, the All-Share index settle at 49,421.91 points while the market capitalisation contracted by ₦12.62bn to close at ₦26.66trn.
Analysis of today’s market activities showed that a total of 51.88m shares valued at ₦590.00m were exchanged in 2,981 deals even as ZENITH BANK PLC led the volume and value charts with 6.3m units traded in deals valued at ₦125.54m.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative with 12 stocks closing on a negative compared to 10 gainers.
ACADEMY PRESS PLC (-9.78%) and NEM INSURANCE PLC (-6.08%) recorded the most significant losses of the day, while UNITY BANK PLC (+10.0%) and MULTIVERSE MINING AND EXPLORATION PLC (+9.82%) topped the gainers’ list.
Analysing by sectors, the Insurance (-1.2%), and Oil & Gas (-0.1%) indices declined, while the Consumer Goods and Industrial Goods indices closed flat. The Banking (+0.3%) index was the sole gainer of the day.
