The local stock market closed today’s trading session on a negative note, as bears maintain a four days streak on equities to dominate the market, with the banking stocks being the major decliners in the market. This led the benchmark index, NGXASI, to witness a decline of 0.27%, concluding at 64,448.96 points.
The market downturn was primarily influenced by investors sell off options on prominent banking stocks such as Zenith Bank (-1.31%), United Bank for Africa (-0.36%), Guaranty Trust Holding Company (-0.27%), Access Corporation (-0.89%), and NASCON (-5.15%) moved the market south.
This led the year-to-date return to close at 25.75%, contributing to a 27 basis points fall in the Market Capitalization, which settled at N35.27 trillion. This decrease translated to a slight drop in investors’ wealth by N96.50 billion.
Market activity was mixed as volume traded increased by 9.82% to settle at 320.35 million units while the value traded declined by 49.82% to N3.73 billion.
We expect bearish sentiment to end the week in the equities market with the ongoing investigation on the CBN.
Currency Market
The Nigerian Naira appreciated by 2.53% against the US Dollar in the I&E Window, closing at a rate of N740.67/USD.
