The domestic bourse last week closed in negative territory ahead of Christmas celebration. This was contrary to the usual Santa Clause rally that the domestic stock market experiences yearly.
However, the sector gauges did not mirror the benchmark index as four of the five sub-indices tracked closed in green. The NGX Banking, NGX Insurance, NGX Consumer Goods and the NGX Industrial indices gained 0.10 per cent, 1.85 per cent, 0.78 per cent and 0.43 per cent to close at 395.76 points, 194.46 points, 554.68 points and 2,090.00 points respectively. However, the NGX Oil & Gas index fell by 0.52 per cent to close at 348.81 points.
On the other side, Julius Berger led the decliners table by 9.88 per cent to close at N22.35, per share. MRS Oil Nigeria followed with a loss of 9.85 per cent to close at N12.35, while Cornerstone Insurance declined by 9.80 per cent to close at 46 kobo, per share.Overall, a total turnover of 965.061 million shares worth N12.455 billion in 14,802 deals was traded last week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 1.317 billion shares valued at N15.