Wema Bank, Dangote Cement, others drag the Nigerian equity market down 0.21%

Sell-pressure on Wema Bank, Dangote Cement, Livestock and 17 other stocks caused the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) to dip 0.21% to 42,270.23 points on Thursday.

The market capitalisation lost ₦45.46bn to ₦22.06trillion, while year-to-date return declined to 4.97%.

Activity level, however, strengthened as volume and value traded increased by 10.28% and 35.73% to 249.4 million units and ₦3.57 billion respectively.

The most traded stocks by volume were FBNH (7 9.14 million units), ACCESS (33.26million units) and ETI (23.18 million units) while FBNH (₦955.87 million), MTNN (₦611.99million) and ACCESS (₦299.45 million) led by value.

On a sectoral basis, performance was largely bullish with four sectors closed higher while two sectors trailed.

Bargain hunting in TOTAL (+2.35%), JAIZBANK (+3.08%) and UBA (+1.2 9%) ensured that the Oil & Gas and Banking indices led the gainers with an increase of 0.29% and 0.26% respectively.

Similarly, gains in FIDSON (+0.48%) and DANGSUGAR (+1.52%) drove the Healthcare (+1 8bps) and Consumer Goods (+1 1bps) indices higher.

On the flip side, the Industrial Goods and Agriculture indices declined by 121bps and 2 4bps respectively, due to losses in DANGCEM (-1.18%) and LIVESTOCK (-1 0.0 0%). The ICT and Services indices however closed flat.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved from 1.42x to 0.75x, reflective of 15 gainers against the 20 decliners. ROYALEX (+5.00%), CHAMS (+4.76%), NGXGROUP (+3.92%), ETI (+3.26%) and TRANSCORP (+3.16%) led 10 other gainers; while LIVESTOCK (-10.00%), UPDC (-8.33%), CAP (-5.70%), SOVRENINS (-4.17%) and CUTIX (-4.00%) led 15 other decliners.