Stock Market Loses N47bn on Resumption from Democracy Day Break

By Dipo Olowookere

The first trading session of the week on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited ended on a negative on Tuesday with a decline of 0.16 per cent buoyed by mild profit-taking.

The stock market was not operational on Monday as a result of the public holiday declared by the federal government to celebrate June 12 Democracy Day.

Sell-offs in almost all the key sectors of the exchange weakened the All Share Index (ASI) by 87.74 points to 53,113.64 points from 53,201.38 points, while the market capitalisation depreciated by N47 billion to N28.634 trillion from N28.681 trillion.

Apart from the insurance sector, which gained 0.16 per cent, every other counter closed bearish with the energy index losing 0.46 per cent, the banking space crashing by 0.35 per cent, the industrial goods sector going down by 0.11 per cent and the cousin, the consumer goods index, losing 0.01 per cent.

Business Post observed that though the bourse was relatively quiet yesterday, the level of activity improved with the trading volume, value and number of deals appreciating by 9.79 per cent, 17.11 per cent and 17.67 per cent respectively.

At the close of transactions, the volume of shares increased by 300.0 million units from 273.2 million units, the value of shares improved by N3.1 billion from N2.7 billion, while the number of trades jumped to 5,394 deals from the preceding session’s 4,584 deals.

FCMB displaced Transcorp as the most active stock in the market on Tuesday, trading 52.1 million equities valued at N182.3 million and was trailed by UBA, which exchanged 47.7 million shares worth N365.4 million.

Transcorp transacted 39.3 million equities valued at N52.2 million, Access Holdings traded 30.1 million shares worth N294.0 million, while GTCO sold 20.4 million equities for N446.2 million.

On the price movement index, CAP emerged as the worst-performing stock as it fell by 9.93 per cent to N18.15, Caverton depreciated by 7.83 per cent to N1.06, Livestock Feeds reduced by 6.25 per cent to N1.50, Transcorp declined by 5.07 per cent to N1.31, while Champion Breweries depreciated by 4.63 per cent to N3.50.

On the flip side, Learn Africa finished the session as the best-performing stock after its value went up by 9.72 per cent to N2.37, Sunu Assurances gained 9.38 per cent to close at 35 kobo, Coronation Insurance appreciated by 5.00 per cent to 42 kobo, Sterling Bank rose by 1.97 per cent to N1.55, while Cornerstone Insurance improved by 1.64 per cent to 62 kobo.