After days of exhibiting positive sentiment, the Nigerian Exchange closed on a bearish trend on Friday due to losses in high-cap stocks, thereby pulling the All Share Index (ASI) down by 1.02% at the close of the day’s trading.
The fundamentals showed that BUAFOODS stock lost 10%, ARADEL’s declined by 6.96% even as the Banking stocks also depreciated, thereby halting a three-day winning streak for investors on the Exchange.
Curiously, trading activities surged during the week’s trading session, reinforcing the inverse relationship between market performance and trade volumes observed on the local bourse.
Data from the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) showed that the bearish sentiment prevailed with three sector indexes declining out of five.
According to the data, buying interest in HONYFLOUR appeared to have marginally waned as the stock gained 0.57%, thereby leading to the Consumer Goods index declining by 5.01%, the Oil and Gas also exhibited the same weakened trend, driven by declines ARADEL (-6.96%), ETERNA (-1.10%), JAPAULGOLD (-2.29%).
In addition, while the Banking index declined by (0.73%), the Industrial index on the other hand recorded gains of 0.76% compared to the Insurance index 0.29% gain.
On the volume of traded stocks, STERLINGNG dominated the volume with a 0.67% increase in 88.61 million units and was closely followed by ACCESSCORP, which traded 29.70 million units, retaining the preceding day’s stock price
On the value chart, DANGCEM topped the chart, exchanging N2.44 billion at 1.24% appreciation in its stock value.
Available data from the monetary authorities on the FX market’s trend indicated that at Thursday’s trading session, the Naira depreciated by 0.24% against the USD, closing at N1,507.088 on the EFEM window.
Meanwhile, the fixed-income market remained stable across short and medium-term tenors during the previous day’s trading even as Brent crude prices edged lower by 0.16%, settling at USD75.02 per barrel in the previous trade session.
On the NASD OTC market, the NSI advanced by 0.54% to close at 3,227.53 points, pushing the market capitalization to NGN1.82 trillion. This gain was driven by a 10% rise in OKITIPUPA, a 9.94% increase in MIXREAL, and a 3% uptick in AFRILAND. Notably, both trading volume and value increased indicating an increase market activity.
