WED OCT 07 2026-theGBJournal| Nigeria’s equities market closed lower on Tuesday, with the NGX All-Share Index falling 0.16% to 250,273.50 points as losses in major banking and consumer stocks offset gains in MTNN, GTCO, UBA and Zenith Bank.
Market capitalisation declined by the same margin to N162.50 trillion, while the market’s month-to-date return stood at -0.4%, against a strong year-to-date gain of 60.8%.
The bearish session was led by declines in FirstHoldCo (-5.09%), Unilever (-4.06%), Fidson (-3.53%), ETI (-2.70%), Stanbic (-1.20%) and AccessCorp (-0.49%).
Sector performance was broadly negative, with the Banking index dropping 1.18%, Consumer Goods 0.75%, Insurance 0.63% and Oil & Gas 0.05%. Industrial Goods was unchanged.
Trading activity also weakened. Total volume fell 33.82% to 579.25 million units, while value traded declined 11.75% to N36.07 billion across 39,811 deals, down 26.12%.
AccessCorp led volume with 192.58 million units, while Aradel topped traded value at N7.63 billion.
Market breadth remained mixed, with 35 decliners against 37 advancers.
TrippleG gained 9.77% to lead the gainers, while CMFC fell 9.88%, the steepest decline of the session.
Elsewhere, the NASD OTC market bucked the broader equities trend, with the NASD Security Index rising 0.10% to 4,404.86 points and its year-to-date return improving to 24.30%.
Trading activity surged, with volume up 136.52% to 2.96 million units and value jumping 1,352.50% to N176.28 million across 47 deals. FoodCo Plc gained 5.30% to lead advancers, while Afriland Plc fell 8.69%.
In the foreign exchange market, the official naira rate strengthened 0.1% to N1,331.54 per dollar.
Nigeria’s external reserves also edged higher, rising 0.05% to $54.98 billion as of October 5, extending the recent improvement in the country’s reserve position.
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