BY FESTUS OKOROMADU, ABUJA
The domestic bourse reversed Tuesday’s gains on Wednesday to close at 67,206.16 points, thus moderating the NGX All-Share Index to report 0.02 percent decline as market sentiment turned bearish to give investors N6.38 billion in losses.
Consequently, the year-to-date gain of the local bourse slipped to 31.13 percent, while the market capitalization which shed N6.38 billion closed at N36.92 trillion.
Specifically, tickers such as ETRANZACT, SUNO SASUR, DEAPCAP, ETERNA and UBA suffered losses as their respective share prices dipped by 10.00 percent, 10.00 percent, 7.41 percent, 7.09 percent, and 5.78 percent, respectively.
Furthermore, gains recorded by GEREGU, ACCESSCORP, and FBNH whose share prices rose by 7.71 percent, 1.81 percent and 0.63 percent respectively were offset by selloffs in ZENITHBANK, GTCO, and UBA which shed 0.60 percent, 1.25 percent, and 5.78 percent of their share price respectively to force the market close in red.
However, despite the negative sentiment in the market, the number of gainers (23) outnumbered that of losers (18).
MULTIVERSE topped the gainers list, while ETRANZACT led the losers chat just as the share price of 76 stocks traded during Wednesday trading session remained unchanged.
Analysis of sectoral performance shows bearish performance as all five sectors under purview declined with the NGX Banking, NGX Insurance, NGX Consumer Goods, NGX Oil & Gas and NGX Industrial Goods recording losses of 1.09 percent, 0.62 percent, 0.16 percent, 0.24 percent, and 0.10 percent in that order.
Market activity witnessed a varied trend, with substantial decreases in both the total number of deals and value. As such, total deals fell by 4.37 percent, totaling 5,998 trades; while the total value of trades for the day nosedived by 30.32 percent to N4.41 billion.
However, trading volume surged by 3.05 percent to reach 329.66 million units. FIDELITYBK emerged as the most actively traded stock for the day with 50.32 million shares worth N411.73 million changing hands in 200 deals.
