Late crosses in Dangcem (-0.87%) alongside selling into the close in MTNN (-1.18%) was mostly responsible for the -36bps pullback on the equities market index. Market activity remained subdued and this can be partly attributed to minimal offshore participation from South Africa based interests and their affiliates due to today’s bank holiday. Renewed bargain hunting in Zenith (+1.00%) and ETI (+1.52%) erased the lacklustre performance in UBA (-1.63%), Guaranty (-0.32%) and FBNH (-0.72%) among the banks. Also, rise in Unilever (+3.23%) and Dangflour (+3.13%) influenced the uptick in the consumers’ index.
Market turnover rose to N3.9bn ($10.8m), dominated by crosses involving locals in Wemabank ($4.7m). Others include; block trades in MTN ($1.69m) by locals whilst Unilever ($0.23m) involved offshore interests. Ytd return on the index closed lower at -4.75%. We expect the market to firm up in the next session.
