Major indicators decline 0.293%, as 'small stocks' advance

The Market Capitalisation and the All-Share index of the Nigeria Stock Exchange(NSE) dipped by 0.293 per cent, after showing a brief sign of revamp at the close of trading on Tuesday. Market capitalisation declined to N11.491 trillion from N11.524 trillion, while All-Share index declined  to 36,230.83 points from 36,337.15 points.

soticeably, Small capitalisation stocks mostly featured on the advancers’/decliners’ list as WAPIC insurance topped the gainers’ list with 10% price appreciation. Market breadth remained on the losers’ end with 28 advancers against 32 decliners.

The Agricultural and conglomerates sectors were the major drivers of positive sector returns each gaining 0.66% and 1.79% respectively owing to gains by PRESCO +1.38%, OKOMUOIL +0.04% and UACN +1.82%.

NSEBNK10 managed a marginal 0.02% appreciation despite the losses made on the large cap banking stocks. The push was however supported by the gains on stocks with lower weights in the basket (DIAMONDBNK +1.50%, FIDELITYBK +2.61%, SKYEBANK +0.25% and ETI +0.35%).

Most markets across Africa aside Ghana and South Africa shed points in  Tuesday’s trading session. Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya however hold the highest YtD return of 65.43%, 29.03% and 25.94% respectively. While European markets similarly closed south, markets in the Americas were heading north as at the time of reporting.

Meanwhile, a total of 138.956 million units of shares valued at N1.852 billion were exchanged in 4,936 transactions.

This was boosted by activities in the shares of Unity Bank of the banking sub-sector of the financial services sector; as investors 13.716 million units of the bank's shares for N7.389 million in 65 deals.

More so, investors traded  50.126 million units of shares for N339.944 million in 1,535 deals in the banking subsector.