Late sell-offs in select bellwether stocks drove the market index into the negative territory by -25bps. However, market performance was largely neutral during the session though activity levels slightly improved on the day. NB (-3.18%), FBNH (-3.33%) and Zenith (-0.43%) dipped into the close, alongside others – UBA (-3.85%), Access (-0.67%) which all offset gains in Guaranty (+1.74) and Dangcem (+0.27%)
Market turnover was up by N3.6bn ($10.1m), buoyed by crosses in Zenith ($3.2m) and offshore block trades in NB ($0.8m) and FBNH ($0.7m). Ytd loss on the index widened to -19.88%. We expect the market to trade sideways in the next session.