The equities market this week closed in the red and unable to break from a bearish performance despite the All Share Index advancing 0.12% on Tuesday. Analysts attributed the bland opening to downward pressures on the index from the industrial goods and banking sectors. They also forecasted sustained negative investor sentiments on account of weak Q3 scorecards posted by companies.
Market performance at the close of business on Friday showed that the index slid consecutively during the week from Wednesday to close at 26,981.60 on Friday due to a 0.23% decline. On that note, SEPLAT lost the most points as it slid 5.0% to close at N361.00 while TOTAL followed with a decline of -5.0%. UPL( -4.9%) trailed to be followed by HONYFLOUR (-4.9%) and ETERNA (-4.6%).
In 2,903 deals consummated, market activities were mixed as investors staked N 1.2 billion on Friday as compared to N2.4 billion Thursday while volume of shares traded was 151.9 million on Friday against 112.5 million Thursday. Investor sentiment which was initially projected to be low was reflected in today’s results which showed seven gainers against eighteen losers.
Leading the gainers’ list was WAPCO (+10.2%) which closed at N54.88. AIRSERVICE (+8.5%) trailed to be followed by AFRIPRUD (+4.8%), FLOURMILL (+3.7%) and NESTLE +2.5%.
As for the top traded, STERLNBANK emerged the investors’ favorite having 33.66 million units traded followed by ZENITHBANK (24.2 million), FBNH (20.2 million), UBA 918.7 million) and ACCESS (9.6 million).
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