Bearish sentiments persisted on the Nigerian Exchange Limited as the market responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the 2023 general elections cases, resulting in a staggering loss of N67 billion from its market capitalization.
This marked the second consecutive day of negative trading on the local stock exchange.
This decline in market capitalization was primarily driven by depreciation in the share values of key companies, including MTN Nigeria (-0.40 percent), Flour Mills (-3.23 percent), Stanbic IBTC (3.21 percent), Computer Warehouse Group (-9.94 percent), Fidelity Bank (-1.82 percent), and 24 others.
The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, affirming President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the February 2023 election.
The All-Share index dipped by -0.18 percent, in contrast to the previous day’s -0.02 percent decline, closing the day at 67,084.95 points, with the market capitalization settling at N36.856 trillion.
Market Breadth, a measure of investor sentiment, was negative at 0.41x, compared to its previous reading of 1.28x, as 29 stocks depreciated while only 12 gained.
Transaction volume decreased from 329.66 million to 267.65 million shares, valued at N5.1 billion, traded in 5,205 deals. A total of 117 stocks were traded during the session.
Across monitored sectoral boards, negative sentiment prevailed, with two out of five sectors closing in the red, two remaining muted, and only one sector experiencing gains.
The Banking and Insurance indexes suffered the most setbacks, declining by 0.33 percent and 1.82 percent, respectively, driven by sell-offs in companies like Stanbic, Prestige, Cornerstone Insurance, GTCO, and Zenith Bank.
However, the Consumer Goods sector grew by 0.12 percent, thanks to Nestle and Transcorp, while the Industrial Goods and Oil & Gas indexes exhibited lackluster performances.
Notable gainers at the close of Thursday’s trading included McNichols, whose shares appreciated by 8.93 percent to close at N0.61, Oando gaining 4.07 percent to close at N8.95, UAC Nigeria’s shares increasing by 6.09 percent to close at N12.20, Chams gaining 3.65 percent to close at N1.99, Nestle gaining 2.94 percent to close at N1,050, and Transcorp gaining 2.75 percent to close at N6.35 per unit.
The day’s trading was primarily driven by the stocks of Fidelity, Chams, Nestle, AccessCorp, UBA, and Stanbic in terms of volume and value.
