By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday halted a three-day decline as all-share index (ASI) inched up on the gains of Banking and Consumer Goods stocks.

At the close of today’s session, gains on the shares of soap and detergent maker, PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc, beer producer, Nigerian Breweries Plc and Nigeria’s top tier lender Zenith Bank Plc led the benchmark index at the Nigerian equities market to close  at 33,556.35 points.

In the same vein, market capitalisation climbed up by N32.09 billion to close at N11.45 trillion, with this gain, current market Year-to-Date (Y-t-D) returns stands at a negative 3.18 percent, while the Month-to-Date (M-t-D) decline also fell to 2.20 percent, Cordros daily market update affirmed.

According to the report, two (2) of the five (5) NSE Sectoral indices appreciated. “The Banking index topped the gainers’ list as it rose by 1.09 percent, while the Consumer Goods index also gained 0.92 percent,” Cordros added.

On the contrary, the Insurance index recorded the worst performance with 1.48 percent depreciation, while the Oil/Gas and Industrial Goods indices dipped 0.25 percent and 0.21 percent respectively.

At the end of today’s transactions on the Nigerian bourse, market breadth remained negative, reporting 16 gainers and 24 losers.

Soap and detergent producer, PZ led the gainers chart with a gain of N2.81 per share; while Red Star Express Plc emerged top loser with a loss of 0.25 kobo per share.

In terms of turnover, volume traded on the Nigerian equities market declined by 73.81 percent to 154.09 million shares, valued at N4.04 billion and traded in 3,515 deals.

“We expect the positive momentum to continue tomorrow as investors take advantage of fallen share prices,” the Cordros report affirmed.