The Nigerian Exchange Limited equities market closed Wednesday’s trading session on a marginally negative note, as renewed sell-offs in selected stocks outweighed gains recorded across some counters.
The NGX All-Share Index declined by 0.03 per cent to close at 246,019.17 points, compared with 246,093.29 points recorded in the previous session.
Similarly, the market capitalisation fell by 0.03 per cent to N158.91 trillion. Despite the decline, the equities market maintained a strong year-to-date return of 58.10 per cent.
The session’s negative performance was largely driven by losses in NASCON, Betaglas and Academy. NASCON led the decliners’ chart after dropping 10.00 per cent to close at N175.50 per share.
Betaglas followed closely with a 9.99 per cent decline to N506.60, while Academy shed 9.76 per cent to close at N5.55. Other notable decliners included CWG, Learnafrica, UPDCREIT and AccessCorp.
The losses came despite gains recorded by TrippleG, Sovrenins and Oando. TrippleG emerged as the day’s top gainer, rising by 10.00 per cent to close at N2.86 per share.
Sovrenins gained 9.71 per cent to close at N2.26, while Oando advanced by 9.43 per cent to N38.30. NEM, Guineains and RTBriscoe also recorded positive price movements.
Trading activity, however, weakened considerably during the session. Total volume traded fell by 34.47 per cent to 426.84 million units, while transaction value declined by 30.25 per cent to N28.44 billion.
The financial services sector accounted for the largest share of market activity by volume, recording 248.52 million units. It was followed by consumer goods with 33.77 million units and services with 31.63 million units.
AccessCorp led the volume chart with 33.22 million shares traded. Stanbic followed with 28.74 million units, while SterlingNG recorded 19.61 million units. Chams and GTCO also featured prominently among the most actively traded stocks.
In terms of value, Aradel led the market with transactions worth N4.14 billion. Stanbic followed with N4.11 billion, while Dangcem recorded N2.05 billion in traded value.
GTCO and FirstHoldco completed the top five stocks by value, with N2.01 billion and N1.68 billion respectively.
Despite the overall decline in the index, market breadth remained positive. Thirty-two stocks advanced against 30 decliners, producing an advancers-to-decliners ratio of 1.07.
The result suggests that the market recorded slightly more gainers than losers, although the heavier losses in some influential stocks were sufficient to push the benchmark index into negative territory.
Sectoral performance was mixed. The banking index declined by 0.59 per cent, while the consumer goods index fell by 0.21 per cent. On the positive side, the industrial goods index rose by 0.23 per cent, the insurance index gained 2.72 per cent, and the oil and gas index advanced by 0.26 per cent.
The latest session reflects a market that continues to deliver strong annual returns but remains vulnerable to profit-taking and stock-specific sell-offs.
