The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited fell 0.02 percent on Thursday as shares of UAC Nigeria, Geregu Power, and eight other companies fell.
The exchange’s marginal decline came despite an improvement in investor sentiment, which was positive yesterday, with 13 equities appreciating at the close of transactions.
The fallers, on the other hand, significantly impacted the bourse’s outcome. As a result, the All-Share Index (ASI) fell 7.46% to 47,524.38 points from 47,531.84 points, while market capitalisation fell by N4 billion to N25.885 trillion from N25.889 trillion.
On Thursday, financial stocks attempted to revive the market by attracting investors, but consumer goods shares stifled this.
The banking index increased by 0.93 percent, the insurance index increased by 0.22 percent, the consumer goods and energy sectors declined by 0.07 percent each, and the industrial goods index closed flat.
When the market closed for the day, UACN was down 9.76% to N9.25, Geregu was down 9.02% to N110.00, Lasaco Assurance was down 6.67% to 84 Kobo, Cornerstone Insurance was down 5.45% to 52 Kobo, and Champion Breweries was down 3.333% to N3.48.
On the other hand, Honeywell Flour bounced back to winning ways with a 9.79 per cent growth to close at N2.13. Neimeth improved by 9.52 per cent to N1.38, Fidson grew by 7.88 per cent to N9.17, Chams gained 7.69 per cent to finish at 28 Kobo, and Livestock Feeds climbed higher by 6.80 per cent to N1.10.
The market was relatively quiet on Thursday as investors were cautious about the macroeconomic environment. They are also on the lookout for the inflation numbers from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) this weekend.
With the current figure at 20.52 per cent and the anchor interest rate at 15.50 per cent, stocks have not been attractive to many because it might be difficult to get returns that could beat inflation quickly.
A total of 86.6 million equities valued at N2.1 billion were transacted during the session in 3,264 deals, in contrast to the 155.2 million equities worth N3.7 billion transacted in 3,797 deals a day earlier. This indicated that the trading volume fell by 44.23 per cent, the trading value dropped by 42.83 per cent, and the number of deals went down by 14.04 per cent.