Increased buying interest in the shares of some banks, especially Zenith Bank and Access Holdings lifted investors’ worth on the Nigerian Exchange Ltd. (NGX) by N85 billion.
Specifically, the market capitalisation closed at N39.649 trillion as against N39.564 trillion recorded on Wednesday, representing 0.22 per cent increase.
Also, the All-Share Index(ASI) increased by 156.04 points or 0.22 per cent to close at 72,455.83 from 72,299.79 recorded on Tuesday.
Consequently, the Year-to-Date(YtD) rose to 41.37 per cent.
The upturn was also driven by other banking stocks such as First City Monumental Bank(FCMB) United Bank of Africa(UBA) and Fidelity Bank among others.
Market breadth closed positive with 27 gainers outnumbering 26 laggards.
The gainers’ table was led by Infinity in percentage terms of 9.83 per cent to close at N2.57 per share, while Johnholt followed with a gain of 9.73 per cent to close at N2.03.
Ikeja Hotel grew by 9.20 per cent to close at N4.75 per share, while Daar Communications rose by 7.69 per cent to close at N0.42 and E-Tranzact increased by 7.69 per cent to close at N7 per share.
On the losers chart, RTBriscoe led in percentage terms by 9.84 per cent to close at 55k per share, while UPDCreit followed by 9.78 per cent to close at N4.15 per share.
Mutual Benefits Assurance lost 9.43 per cent to close at 48k, Omatek shed 7.79 per cent to close at 71k, while Sovereign Trust Insurance declined by 7.69 per cent to close at 36k per share.
Also, the total volume traded declined by 10 per cent to 446.58 million units valued at N7.266 billion and exchanged in 6, 845 deals.
Transactions in the shares of Access Holdings topped the activity chart with 77.26 million shares valued at N1.76 billion.
FCMB followed with 45.24 million shares worth N318.61 million, while Zenith Bank traded 37.29 million shares valued at N1.38 billion.
UBA traded 29.3 million shares valued at N724.07 million, while Fidelity Bank transacted 27.51 million shares worth N257.28 million.