By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Nigerian equities market on Thursday halted a four-day bullish run which commenced February 27 as all-share index (ASI) dipped 0.8 percent to close at 30,365.05 points, while market capitalisation declined by N83.37 billion to close at N10.13 trillion.

A Proshare report says the decline at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) came after 10.98 percent gain in 14 days. In the same vein, the decline put current Year-to-Date (Y-t-D) returns to 12.38 percent

Cordros market update reported that three (3) out of the five (5) NSE Sectoral indices appreciated. “The Insurance index topped the gainers chart with a marginal gain of 0.26 percent, while the Oil/Gas and Industrial Goods indices followed with a 0.13 percent and 0.11 percent increase respectively,” the report affirmed.

On the contrary, the Consumer Goods index dropped the most with a 1.48 percent fall, while the Banking index also followed with a 1.36 percent decline.

At the end of the session, market breadth at the Nigerian bourse worsened as it recorded 16 gainers and 27 losers. Oil marketer, Oando Plc emerged top gainer with a gain of 0.71 kobo, while construction giant, Julius Berger Plc led the losers chart with a loss of N4.48.

In terms of turnover, volume traded on the Nigerian equities market decreased by 0.67 percent to 378.74 million shares, valued at 4.12 billion and traded in 3,883 deals.

“We opine a market rebound tomorrow, as market participants are expected to take advantage of positive results in the banking sector,” the Cordros report added.