By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigerian stocks on Thursday turned red amidst sell-offs in banking stocks as all-share index (ASI) declined 0.10 percent to close at 34,494.36 points, while market capitalisation dipped by N11.96 billion to close at N11.75 trillion.
This is coming on the heels of sell-offs in shares of lenders FBN Holdings Plc, Zenith Bank Plc and Guaranty Trust bank Plc culminating to current Year-to-Date (Y-t-D) returns at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to a negative of 0.47 percent.
Cordros market update reports that two (2) of the five (5) NSE Sectoral indices appreciated. “The Consumer Goods and Insurance indices recorded minimal gains of 0.54 percent and 0.41 percent respectively,” the report added.
On the contrary, the Banking index had the worst performance with a 1.91 percent decline, while the Oil/Gas and Industrial Goods indices dropped by 1.27 percent and 0.31 percent respectively,” the report affirmed.
At the end of the day’s session at the Nigerian bourse, market breadth remained positive, recording 27 gainers and 19 losers according to the NSE’s daily market statistics. Paint makers, Portland Paints & Products Plc emerged top gainer with a gain of 0.35 kobo, while soap makers, Unilever Nigeria Plc led the losers table with a loss of N2.00.
In terms of turnover at the end of business on the Nigerian equities market, volume traded increased by 58.13 percent to 542.23 million shares, valued at N3.56 billion and traded in 5,222 deals.
“We do not expect tomorrow’s session to differ from this week’s sluggish trading,” the Cordros report affirmed.
