August 31, (THEWILL) – The bullish trend that characterised Nigeria’s local bourse in August saw trading close on Thursday with investors gaining N1.41 trillion as market capitalisation hit N36.42 trillion against N35.01 trillion the month opened on August 1.
The NGX All-Share Index recorded 66,548.99 points against the opening 64,337.52 points, thus gaining 2,211.47 points or 3.4 percent
August 29 recorded the highest performance since March 2008 as market capitalisation hit N36.39 trillion and All-Share Index jumped to 66,490.34 points on that day.
Trading activities in the local bourse on Thursday, August 31, were negative for most of the day, but late interest in Seplat (+10.0% against price share of N1,678.80) led the market closing on a positive note. Precisely, the All-Share Index inched higher by 0.2% to 66,548.99 points.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns advanced to +3.4% and +29.9%, respectively.
The total volume traded on Thursday decreased by 2.5% to 620.98 million units, valued at N7.18 billion, and exchanged in 7,972 deals. Sterling Bank was the most traded stock by volume at 170.00 million units, while Dangote Sugar was the most traded stock by value at N1.60 billion.
Sectoral performance was mixed, as the Oil & Gas and Banking indices gained, while the Consumer Goods and Insurance indices declined. The Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.6x), as 31 tickers gained relative to 19 losers. NGX Group (+10.0% against N24) and Seplat (+10.0% against N1,678.80) topped the gainers’ list, while Multiverse (-10.0% against N3) and Nascon (-9.8% against N56.05) recorded the highest losses of the day.
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.
