The valuation of equities investors’ portfolios experienced a decline of approximately N74 billion on Wednesday, driven by selling activities on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) trading platform.
The market index, or the All-Share Index, decreased by 0.10 percent, settling at 105,485.99 points, thereby adjusting the year-to-date return to 2.49 percent. Today’s profit-taking actions across significant sectoral indices resulted in a reduction of N73.92 billion in the local bourse, closing at N66.14 trillion.
Despite the overall market downturn, investor sentiment remained optimistic, as indicated by a positive market breadth, according to stockbrokers. Key indicators showed a sharp decline, with data from the Nigerian bourse revealing that 30 stocks recorded gains compared to 17 stocks that experienced losses.
Trading activity was vigorous, with the total volume and value of transactions increasing substantially by 1,548.98 percent and 2,172.65 percent, respectively. However, the number of deals decreased by 12.39 percent, with 10,908 transactions recorded, totaling N352.61 billion in value and 5,760.32 million units traded.
Lafarge Africa (ticker: WAPCO) emerged as the most actively traded stock by both volume and value, with 3.53 billion units and N4.47 billion, respectively. Investors realized profits on MTNN (-2.69%) and ZENITHBANK (-1.11%), consequently reducing the market capitalization by N73.92 billion.
While MBENEFIT (+10.00%) was the top-performing counter, ABCTRANS (-9.21%) led the decliners. Elsewhere, trading metrics improved, with total volume and value traded rising to 5.76 billion units and N342.61 billion, respectively.
Sovereign Insurance Plc (ticker: SOVERNINS) topped the volume charts with 607.06 million units changing hands, while SEPLAT recorded N3.5 billion in traded value for the day. Notable gainers included MBENEFIT (+10.00%), ROYALEX (+9.88%), NEM (+9.84%), LASACO (+9.56%), and ETRANZACT (+9.52%).
Conversely, UHOMREIT (-9.93%), ABCTRANS (-9.80%), UNIVINSURE (-8.33%), DAARCOMM (-6.45%), and CHAMPION (-5.00%) led the decliners. Despite the general bearish trend in the market, sectoral performance was predominantly bullish.
Specifically, the Insurance (+2.64%), Consumer Goods (+0.35%), Banking (+0.13%), and Oil & Gas (+0.03%) indices saw increases, driven by buying interest in NEM (+9.84%), NESTLE (+2.56%), GTCO (+1.99%), and ETERNA (+3.91%), respectively.
Meanwhile, the Industrial Goods and Commodity indices remained unchanged.
