Despite its impressive performance in the early days of trading this week, the Nigerian equities market closed negative on Friday as investors appeared to be bullish in their profit-taking sentiment driven primarily by the recent rallies by major stocks.
Information from the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX), the market’s supervisory entity showed that the market’s All-Share Index (ASI) depreciated by -0.33% lower when compared to the preceding day’s level, to close at 59,000.96 index points as against 59,195.21 index points recorded on Thursday.
Consequently, the market capitalization of equities depreciated by N106 billion to close at N32.126 trillion, a -0.33% loss compared to the N32.232 trillion it grew to in the previous trading session.
According to the NGX’s data on the day’s trading, the market breadth also closed negative as WAPIC Plc (10.00%) led gainers’ table, NEM Plc (-9.87%) led losers’ list just as LIVINGTRUST Plc was the most traded equity by volume at the end of today’s session.
Trading volume also reduced by -43.38% from the previous day’s session as N662.41 million units of shares were traded today.
Specifically, the trading volume figures reflected that the total volume of stocks traded stood at 662.41 million with a value of N6.51 billion that exchanged hands in 9,417 deals.
The market indices reflected that the top five ASI gainers were led by WAPIC, which gained 10.00% to close at N0.66 per share; FTNCOCOA also appreciated by 9.76% to close at N1.35 per share; TRANSCOHOT gained 9.69% to close at N14.60 per share; UNITYBNK appreciated by 9.68% to close at N1.02 per share; and RTBRISCOE that also gained 9.68% to close at N0.34 per share
At the close of Friday’s trading session, the top five ASI losers comprised NEM, down by -9.87% to close at N6.30 per share; ABBEYBDS, which was down by -9.52% to close at N1.52 per share; CWG, which depreciated by -9.50% to close at N1.62 per share; JOHNHOLT, which was down by -9.45% to close at N1.15 per share; and TIP that depreciated by -9.30% to close at N0.39 per share
The top three traded equities by volume were LIVINGTRUST: 103,433,185; UBA: 46,269,069; and ACCESSCORP: 41,023,827 while the top three traded based on value of transactions included ZENITHBANK: N1,211,548,879; ACCESSCORP: N591,849,409; and UBA: N524,258,294
