On Thursday, the equity market maintained an upward posture, following sustained buy interests in stocks of Dangote Cement, MTN Nigeria, and BUA Cement, among others.

Specifically, the All-Share Index rose by 2.04 per cent or 1,833.72 points, to close at 91,896.97, against 90,063.25 posted on Wednesday.

Similarly, the market capitalisation, which opened at N49.284, rose by N1.005 trillion or 2.04 per cent to close at N50.289 trillion.

As a result, the Year-To-Date (YTD) return rose to 22.91 per cent.

Market breadth closed positive with 33 gainers and 42 losers.

On the gainers’ table, Eterna, Unity Bank, NEM Insurance, Johnholt and Conoil led in percentage terms of 10 per cent each to close at N20.90, N3.30, N8.25, N2.53 and N112.20 per share, respectively.

Conversely, Ikeja Hotel led the loser’s table by 9.79 per cent to close at N8.11, while Royalex followed at 9.78 per cent to close at 83k per share.

Mutual Benefits trailed by 9.57 per cent to close at 85k, while Linkage Assurance lost 9.40 per cent to close at N1.35 per share.

Also, JapaulGold shed 9.33 per cent to close at N2.43 per share.

The volume of transactions grew by 18 per cent as 1.14 billion shares valued at N19.29 billion were exchanged in 17,804 deals.

Meanwhile, transactions in the shares of Transcorp led the activity chart with 156.62 million, valued at N2.960 billion. Universal Insurance followed with 114.54 million shares worth N55.58 million.

Veritas Kapital sold 69.41 million shares, traded at N47.33 million, while Jaiz Bank garnered 65.87 million at N243.89 million.

Guaranty Trust Holding Company traded 63.44 million, valued at N2.88 billion.

Commenting in an interview with journalists in Lagos, Jude Chiemeka, the acting chief executive officer of the Nigerian Exchange Ltd (NGX), said the capital market is usually a barometer of the economy.

Mr Chiemeka explained that the bullish trend recorded by the stock market reflected the various reforms of the Federal Government in the financial sector.

(NAN)