Equities trading at the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Thursday was positive as the domestic bourse resumed with highly bullish sentiment, leaving the All Share Index (ASI) with 0.20 per cent appreciation to 99,832.25 basis points.

Basically driven by renewed interest in consumer goods and banking bellwether stocks, the market capitalisation also inched up by 0.20 per cent to N56.47 trillion in post-democracy celebration trading sessions.As a result, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns increased to +0.5 per cent and +33.5 per cent, respectively.

Consequently, as measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive as the exchange recorded 30 gainers against 17 decliners, indicating strong market breadth despite low-traded volumes and values, as investors’ wealth increased by N114.12 billion.

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The positive sentiment was bolstered by significant movements in the day’s top gainers such as Nigeria. Breweries with a 10.00 per cent increase in its share price, Unity Bank with a 9.91 per cent increase, NEM Insurance with a 9.77 per cent appreciation, Thomas Way with 9.43 per cent and UACN with 8.65 per cent increase in share price.

In contrast, the top decliners included Eco Bank Transnational Incorporated, having lost 9.92 per cent from its share price, Daar Communication with 8.77 loss, C&I Leasing with 7.14 per cent dip, RTBriscoe with 5.08 per cent depreciation and Custodian Assurance with 5.08 dip in share value.

Sectoral performance was positive across all fronts except for the oil and gas index, which remained unchanged. The insurance index led the gainers’ chart on Thursday with a 1.80 per cent advance, followed by the banking, consumer goods, and industrial indexes with gains of 0.98 per cent, 0.30 per cent and 0.12 per cent respectively, driven by positive interest across index tickers.

On Thursday, trading activity in the stock market was lacklustre, with the total traded volume decreasing by 40.80 per cent to 502.59 million units, and the total traded value plummeting by 47.72 per cent to N8.65 billion.However, the number of trades improved by 20.11 per cent. totalling 9,686 transactions.

At the end of Thursday’s session, Zenith Bank emerged as the most traded stock by volume, with a total of 71.22 million units in 498 trades, while Nigerian Breweries was the most traded security by value, worth N165.60 million exchanged in 291 deals.

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