The stock market, on Thursday, maintained an upward trend as the market capitalisation added ₦792 billion or 0.125 per cent to an opening of ₦63.559 billion, to close at ₦64.351 trillion.
The All-Share Index also gained 0.125 per cent or 1300 points, to close at 105,530.74, in contrast to 104,230.73 recorded on Wednesday.
The positive performance was primarily driven by price appreciation in MTN Nigeria, Zenith Bank, United Bank For Africa (UBA), Oando Plc, among other advanced equities.
Consequently, the Year-To-Date (YTD) return advanced to 2.53 per cent.
However, the market breadth closed positive with 34 gainers and 25 losers.
On the gainers’ chart, MTN Nigeria led by ₦22 to close at ₦242, Honeywell Flour followed by 82k to close at ₦9.11 and Universal Insurance added 7k to close at 78k per share.
Transcorp Hotel gained ₦11.35 to close at ₦127.35 and Ikeja Hotel increased by ₦1.15 to close at ₦13.50 per share.
On the other hand, RT Briscoe led the losers chart by 26k to close at ₦2.34, Sunu Assurances trailed by 90k to close at ₦8.11 per share.
Initiate Plc lost 27k to close at ₦2.52, UPDC Real Estate Investment Trust shed 19k to close at ₦1.81 and Guinea Insurance dropped 8k to close at 91k per share.
Analysis of the market activities showed trade turnover also settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 48.09 per cent.
A total of 481.69 million shares valued at ₦12.82 billion were exchanged in 12,824 deals, compared with 756.42 million shares valued at ₦24.69 billion traded in 13,551 deals, posted in the previous session.
Universal Insurance led the activity chart in volume with 97.24 million shares, while Seplat led in value of deals worth ₦4.56 billion.
(NAN)
