Bearish sentiment persisted on the equity market on Thursday with market capitalisation declining further by N481 billion, amid selloffs in Tier- one banking stocks.
Consequently, the Nigerian Exchange Ltd.(NGX) market capitalisation, which opened at N55.871 trillion, shed N481 billion or 0.86 per cent to close at N55.390 trillion.
Similarly, the All-Share Index declined by 0.86 per cent or 878.65 points to close at 101,227.66, compared with 102,106.31 posted on Wednesday.
Consequently, the Year-To-Date (YTD) return slipped to 35.38 per cent.
The loss was driven by price depreciation in Tier-one banking stocks amongst which are; Zenith Bank, United Bank of Africa(UBA) and Access Bank Holdings.
Meanwhile, market breadth closed negative with 49 equities on the laggard’s table outnumbering six others on the leader’s table.
On the laggards’ table, Consolidated Hallmark Plc, Unity Bank, Sterling Nigeria and National Salt Company (NASCON) led in percentage terms of 10 each to close at N1.44, N2.52, N5.31 and N19.90 per share, respectively.
Eterna Plc trailed by 9.95 per cent to close at N22.10 per share.
On the other hand, Meyer Plc led the leaders’ table by 9.97 per cent to close at N6.29, Juli Plc followed by 9.52 per cent to close at 92k, while Tantalizers gained 4.76 per cent to close at 44k per share.
Also, Red Star Express Plc rose by 4.05 per cent to close at N3.85 and LASACO Assurance garnered N3.54 per cent to close at N2.63 per share.
On the activity table, Universal Insurance led with 42.77 million shares valued at N16.09 million, Transcorp followed by 41.54 million shares worth N528.07 million.
Zenith Bank sold 31.75 million shares valued N1.12 billion, while UBA traded 31.38 million shares worth N741.67 million and Access Corporation transacted 31.21 million shares worth N729.39 million.
However, analysis of the market activities showed trade turnover was higher than the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 11.97 per cent.
A total of 478.38 billion shares valued at N7.17 billion were exchanged in 10,957 deals, as against 341.92 billion shares valued at N6.41 billion exchanged in 9,665 deals on Wednesday.
