The Nigerian equity market halted its three-trading session downtrend on Thursday as investors take advantage of the decline in some bellwether stocks like Zenith Bank, GTBank and MTNN.
The as the All-Share Index appreciated by O.38 per cent to close at 25,520.97 points, while the market capitalisation gained ₦50.1 billion to close at ₦13.3trillon and the bourse loss this year improved to -4.9 per cent.
The volume and value of equities traded dipped 13.2 per cent and 42.7 per cent respectively to 236.4 million units and ₦1.6 billion.
The most traded stocks by volume were Zenith Bank (33.2m units), Fidelity Bank (30.0m units) and Mutual Benefit (25.0m units), while Zenith Bank (₦546.8m), GTBank (₦221.9m) and SEPLAT (₦174.3m) led by value.
The Banking and AFR-ICT sectors were the best performing indicators, gaining 2.3 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively, buoyed by price appreciation in Zenith Bank (+3.4 per cent), GTBank (+1.9 per cent) and MTNN (+0.4 per cent). S
Similarly, the Consumer and Industrial Goods indices posted respective gains of 0.1 per cent and 0.02 per cent, on the back of buying interest in Nigerian Breweries (+0.1 per cent), Honey Flour (+4.4 per cent) and WAPCO (+0.4 per cent).
The Insurance and Oil & Gas sectors lost 1.7 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively, following sell pressures in CORNERSTONE (-7.6 per cent), CUSTODIAN (-3.0 per cent) and SEPLAT (-2.5 per cent).
The top gainers were ETERNA (+9.7 per cent), CILEASING (+8.5 per cent) and Wema Bank (+7.8 per cent), while ABCTRANS (-7.7 per cent), CORNERSTONE (-7.6 per cent) and CHIPLC (-5.9 per cent) lost the most.
