The Nigerian Exchange Limited’s low- and medium-cap equities with solid fundamentals attracted investors’ attention on Thursday, leading to a favourable trading pattern that increased the market capitalization by N27 billion.
The Punch reported that due to losses in a few high-cap equities, including MTN Nigeria, Lafarge Africa, and other banking stocks, the equity market saw a 0.09 percent decrease on Wednesday.
The market did, however, turn positive again on Thursday, closing at N 39.074tn and 71,052.85 points, respectively, after a 0.07 percent rise on the market cap and the All-Share Index. The return for the year thus far has increased to 38.63 percent.
Analysts have ascribed the favourable outcome to certain NGX players’ dividend-earning season and continuous portfolio rebalancing efforts in front of year-end.
The day’s gainers outnumbered losers by a margin of 19, showing the optimistic momentum that pervaded the market.
Stocks such as Beta glass led the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent gain to close at N59.40 per unit, Multiverse stocks gained 9.98 per cent to close at N5.29. Nigerian Enamelware and MeCure Industries stocks gained 9.97 per cent to close at N19.30 and N8.38 per unit respectively, while DEAPCAP and Infinity Trust Mortgage bank with 9.84 per cent gain closed trading at N0.67 and N1.34 per unit.
Conversely, Ellah Lakes saw a 9.89% loss to end at N3.37 per unit, Omatek lost 9.17 per cent to close at N0.99, McNichols and Academy Press Plc lost 5.56 per cent to close at N0.85 and N1.70 and Sterling Financial Holdings lost 3.85 per cent to close at N3.50.
Positive attitude pervaded all five sectors, with three of them closing higher than the other. Significant gains were seen by the Insurance, Banking, and Industrial indexes, which increased by 1.27 percent, 0.03 percent, and 0.04 percent, respectively.
On the other hand, the Oil & Gas index moved flat while the Consumer Goods index closed marginally lower by 0.05 percent due to sell pressure in the industry.
The volume traded on the NGX increased by 31.57% to 563.71 million units, as evidenced by trading activity. Nevertheless, the day’s total agreements and value—6,579 deals and N3.44 billion—saw drops of 1.47 percent and 53.32 percent, respectively.
In terms of value, Zenith Bank topped with N694.2m, while Universal Insurance was the most traded securities in terms of volume, with 164.30 million units valued at N41.98m.
