Penny stocks cause market to see first gain this week

Nigeria’s equities market recorded its first gain this week, rising by 0.04percent or N9billion at the close of Wednesday’s trading session.

As sell down in large cap names continued to dampen market performance year-to-date (YtD), the market expectedly saw slight bargain hunting activities in favour of penny stocks.

Investors were seen buying penny stocks like Unity Bank, Linkage Assurance, Royal Exchange, Chams and Mutual Benefit. Royal Exchange led other gainers after rising from 82kobo to 88kobo, up 6kobo or 7.32percent. It was followed by Unity Bank which increased from 44kobo to 48kobo, adding 4kobo or 9.09percent.

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The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) benchmark performance indicator – the All-Share Index (ASI) and equities market capitalisation – increased from preceding day’s lows 43,461.6 points and N23.672 trillion respectively to 43,477.48 points and N23.681trillion.

The record positive on Wednesday helped push higher equities market’s positive return year-to-date (YtD) to 1.78percent.

FBN Holdings, Oando, Zenith Bank, UBA and GTCO were top-5 traded stocks. In 3,078 deals, investors exchanged 133,405,263 shares valued at N1.810billion.