Trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Thursday closed on the negative route following losses recorded by blue chip firms.
The local bourse recorded 40 losers against 6 gainers to begin trading on the negative route. Consequently, the All-Share Index depreciated by 1.27 per cent to close at 34,577.26 index points as against 35.021.26 recorded the previous trading session while the market capitalization of equities dipped to N18.072trillion as market sentiment thread in the negative territory.
A total volume of 553.9 million units of shares, valued at N6.63billion exchanged hands in 6,441 deals. GUARANTY (-2.41%) finished the most traded shares by volume and value at 87.0million units, and N2.82billion.
Analyzing sector performances, losses were recorded across all sectors. The Banking index (-4.14%) recorded another loss for the week, as Tier one banking stocks continued to wane. Decline in MANSARD (-6.14%), AIICO (-5.41%) and NEM (-4.08%) dragged the Insurance index down by -3.72%. Accordingly, the Consumer Goods, Industrial and Energy indexes followed to depreciate by 0.65%, 0.18% and 0.08% respectively on the back of price depreciation in GUINNESS (-9.83%), DANGSUGAR (-6.88%), WAPCO (-10.00%) and OANDO (-6.44%).
