BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
The Lagos bourse reversed some of the previous session’s gains on Thursday as the benchmark index slipped by 0.02 percent to close at 47,353.22 points. Renewed selloffs in SEPLAT (-3.13%) drove the market’s weak performance. In addition, losses in NB (-1.98%) and DANGSUGAR (-1.25%) offset gains in PRESCO (+6.40%), FBNH (+1.70%) and ZENITHBANK (+0.19%). As a result, the ASI’s year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 10.85 percent, while the market capitalisation lost N6.06bn to close at N25.52trn.
Analysts at Coronation Research noted that today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions advancing by 53.51 percent. A total of 239.73m shares valued at N3.89bn were exchanged in 3,848 deals. VERITASKAP (-4.55%) led the volume chart with 30.01m units traded, while MTNN (+0.00%), for the second consecutive session, led the value chart in deals worth N961.43m.
Market breadth closed positive at a 1.05-to-1 ratio, with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones. UACN (+10.00%) led seventeen (17) others on the leader’s log, while NIGERINS (-9.09%) topped sixteen (16) others on the laggard’s table.
