BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
The market capitalization of the Nigerian equities market recorded a surge on Wednesday with a gain of N87.95 billion which pushed up total market value to N28.63 trillion.
On Tuesday, investors grabbed over N102 billion as gain from their activities in the market.
Activities on investors in Zenith Bank Plc, GTCO Plc, and First Bank Holdings Plc kept the market in the positive territory with the share value of the named banking stocks increasing by 2.65 percent, 4.18 percent and 0.83 percent, respectively.
The Lagos bourse closed higher as the benchmark index gained 0.31 percent to settle at 52,580.86 points.
As a result, the year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 2.59 percent.
Analysis of Wednesday’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 16.24 percent.
A total of 680.80 million shares valued at N7.89 billion were exchanged in 6,666 deals.
The shares of Fidelity Bank Plc, lost (-2.12%) to lead the volume chart with 254.05 million units traded, while GTCO added (+4.18%) to its share value to top the value chart in deals worth N1.57 billion.
Meanwhile, stock market analysts at Cowry Research disclosed that market breadth closed positive at a 1.67-to-1 ratio with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones.
On the gainers chart, Nigerian Breweries Plc with (+9.63%) gain, led twenty-four (24) others while Transnational Corporation Plc (Transcorp) sheds (-5.23%) to top fourteen (14) others on the laggard’s table.
