The Nigerian Exchange Market commenced the week on a downward trajectory, witnessing a decline in market capitalization by N259 billion on Monday, largely influenced by losses in the shares of medium-cap companies.
Leading the decliners was BUA Cement, experiencing a 10% drop in share value from N104 to N93.60 per unit. Other affected stocks included Dangote Sugar (-0.43%), Lafarge (-0.17%), Oando Plc (-2.12%), Fidson (-3.53%), NGX Group (-0.68%), Zenith Bank (-0.43%), and United Bank for Africa (-0.23%).
This downturn resulted in the market capitalization and All-Share Index declining by 0.66% to N38.823 trillion and 70,946.83, respectively, while year-to-date returns stood at 38.43%. Trading volume on the local bourse dipped to 358.53 million units valued at N7.10 billion across 6,433 deals involving 121 stocks.
Despite the overall loss, positive market sentiment was evident with 33 gainers and 26 losers. Notably, Thomas Wyatt emerged as the top gainer with a 10% increase in share value, followed by First Bank of Nigeria Holdings (9.93%), Daar Communications (9.68%), DEAP Capital (9.68%), and Neimeth (9.63%).
Conversely, McNichols (-9.33%) followed BUA Cement among the top losers, joined by Computer Warehouse Group (-7.50%), Mutual Benefit (-7.14%), and UPDC (-7.14%).
Key drivers in terms of volume and value included Universal Insurance, Transnational Corporation, Airtel Africa, GTCO, and McNichols.
Sector performance leaned bearish, with three of the five tracked sectors—Insurance, Oil/Gas, and Industrial Goods—recording losses of 0.28%, 0.01%, and 4.21%, respectively. However, the Banking and Consumer Goods sectors witnessed marginal gains of 0.01% and 0.06%, respectively.
