July 26, (THEWILL) – The domestic equities market recorded its first negative performance this week as profit-taking in MTNN (-3.4% against N225.10 share price) drove the benchmark index 0.5% lower to 65,687.16 points against 65,991.02 points on Tuesday.
Market capitalisation closed at N35.74 trillion against N35.93 trillion in the previous trading session, showing a loss of N187 billion.
Accordingly, the Mon0th-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to +7.7% and +28.2%, respectively.
The total volume of trade declined by 9.6% to 500.43 million units, valued at NGN7.14 billion, and exchanged in 7,345 deals. UBA was the most traded stock by volume at NGN58.31 million, while ACCESSCORP was the most traded stock by value at NGN991.20 million.
Sectoral performance was mixed, as the Oil & Gas (+4.9%) and Insurance (+1.0%) indices advanced, while the Banking (-0.6%) and Consumer Goods (-0.5%) indices printed losses. Meanwhile, the Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.3x), as 32 tickers gained relative to 24 losers. COURTVILLE (+10.0%) and NCR (+10.0%) topped the gainers’ list, while UNILEVER (-10.0%) and CADBURY (-10.0%) recorded the most significant losses of the day.
At the official forex market window, the Naira rose against the dollar to close at N740.08/$ compared to N771.42/$ recorded on Tuesday, a 6.5 percent appreciation. Daily turnover settled at $153.28 million implying a 197.4 percent increase compared with $51.55 million on Tuesday.
About the Author
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
