After three consecutive days of bearish trading, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) saw a N74bn increase in value on Thursday.
During the previous three days, the equity market experienced a downturn, losing N469bn due to sell-offs.
The All-Share Index rose by 0.13%, reaching 104,387.47 points, while the market capitalization climbed to N59.02tn, pushing the bourse’s year-to-date return to 39.6%.
Market activity witnessed a surge, with volume increasing by 12.78% to 336.82 billion units and the value of transactions appreciating by 35.74% to N9.29bn. Total deals also went up by 6.57% to 8,790.
Although there were more losers (29) than gainers (22) on the exchange, certain stocks like Juli Plc, Transcorp, International Energy Insurance, ETranzact, and Guinea Insurance experienced gains of 10.00%, 9.96%, 9.66%, 9.65%, and 8.33%, respectively, driven by increased buying interest.
On the other hand, top decliners included DeapCap, Tourist, Computer Warehouse Group, Caverton, and Omatek, which saw declines of 10%, 9.86%, 9.09%, 8.57%, and 8.05%, respectively.
The banking, insurance, and industrial goods indices rose by 0.9%, 0.57%, and 0.42%, respectively, while the consumer goods sector declined by 0.09%, and the oil/gas sector remained flat.
United Bank for Africa emerged as the most traded security by volume, with 63.88 million units transacted in 773 deals, while Nestle led in traded value, totaling N1.82bn.
Meanwhile, PZ Cussons maintained its price at N40, despite an increase in the volume of traded shares from 1,400 on Wednesday to 29,407 on Thursday.
This development follows the announcement from the firm that the Securities and Exchange Commission had refused to grant a No-Objection for its proposal to buy out minority shareholders at N23.
Source: Adetunji Tobi; Techeconomy
