It was a quiet day on the NGX today and the market index closed flattish with a marginal 0.01% uptick at 41,813.27 points. The market breadth was however slightly positive with almost two advancers recorded per each one that declined, thanks largely to gains in the banks. The advancers were led by NGXGroup (+3.09%) which rallied strongly on cross trades, while banking counters Sterlingbank (+2.74%); UBA (+1.27%); Access (+1.11%) and Zenith (+1.01%) also ticked up mostly on local demand. These were however muted by contractions in ETI (-3.47%); Dangsugar (-2.94%); Fidelity (-1.54%); WAPCO (-1.04%) and UBN(-0.82%), which weakened after days of strong gains post the Titan Trust Bank announcement.
Activity levels remained tepid and market turnover was low at N1.8bln ($4.5mln). The YTD return on the NGXASI stood at +3.83%. We expect the market to maintain a similar trading pattern in the coming session barring any last minute surprises.
