Market Cap Slips as Nigerian Exchange Halts 2-Week Rally
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) paused its 2-week rally on Friday, with profit-taking in First Holdco and Total Energies, and declines in other stocks on the local bourse.
The positive momentum in the Nigerian equities market stalled for the first time in two weeks as the All-Share Index marginally declined by 0.01% to close at 252,113.41 points.
Market capitalisation decreased to N163.66 trillion as investors lost N23.77 billion, while the market’s year-to-date return slipped to 62.01%.
Trading activity moderated as the volume of shares traded declined by 27.54% to 708.81 million units, while transaction value increased by 16.36% to N58.33 billion.
Stockbrokers reported that the number of deals also fell by 12.43% to 42,434. Market breadth improved to 1.44x, with 39 gainers outperforming 27 losers, indicating a narrower positive breadth than the previous session.
FIDELITYBK led the volume chart with 212.77 million shares traded across 926 deals, while SEPLAT recorded the highest transaction value at approximately N26.67 billion across 932 deals.
Risers include ZICHIS, CMFC, RTBRISCOE, ABCTRANS, and ROYALEX, while decliners were TOTAL, LEGENDINT, HMCALL, CAVERTON, and FIRSTHOLDCO.
ZICHIS (+10.00%) and CMFC (+9.76%) led the gainers’ list. Top Losers: TOTAL ( -10.00%) and LEGENDINT (-9.09%) topped the laggards’ list.
Sectoral performance was mixed, as Insurance (+0.12%) and Industrial (+0.04%) closed in positive territory, while Banking (-0.69%) and Oil & Gas (-0.13%) weighed on the index, and the Consumer Goods and Commodity sectors ended flat.
The market is expected to sustain its bullish bias as investor sentiment tilts increasingly positive, though residual profit-taking activity could temper the pace of any recovery.
Investors Trade 3.25bn Shares Valued at N238bn in Nigerian Market
