Equity Market Down by 0.05% as Bears ‘Japa’ With N16bn

By Dipo Olowookere

The bears maintained their grip on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Monday after the market went down by 0.05 per cent at the close of transactions.

Profit-taking in the consumer goods space, especially in Nigerian Breweries and Dangote Sugar, weakened the exchange on the first trading session of the week, though investor sentiment remained strong.

Data showed that the All-Share Index (ASI) depleted yesterday by 29.35 points to settle at 54,886.04 points compared with last Friday’s 54,915.39 points, as the market capitalisation decreased by N16 billion to close at N29.900 trillion, in contrast to the previous N29.916 trillion.

The insurance counter lost 0.47 per cent during the session as the consumer goods sector went down by 0.36 per cent, eroding the 1.30 per cent jump reported by the banking index and the 0.06 per cent growth posted by the industrial goods sector. The energy counter remained unchanged at the close of business.

The market breadth was positive on Monday as the local bourse finished the trading day with 19 price gainers and 14 price losers led by Coronation Insurance, which fell by 9.52 per cent to 38 Kobo.

Ikeja Hotel depreciated by 9.52 per cent to N1.14, Stanbic IBTC lost 8.52 per cent to quote at N36.50, Multiverse dwindled by 5.80 per cent to N3.25, and Livestock Feeds slumped by 5.50 per cent to N1.03.

Access Holdings recorded the highest price improvement at the equity market yesterday as it rose by 7.14 per cent to N9.00, Cutix grew by 5.69 per cent to N2.23, University Press jumped by 5.53 per cent to N2.10, Custodian Investment went up by 5.17 per cent to N6.10, and Chams gained 4.17 per cent to trade at 25 Kobo.

The volume of shares transacted by investors on Monday surged by 664.33 per cent to 1.2 billion shares from 157.0 million shares transacted in the preceding session, as the value of transactions increased by 81.25 per cent to N2.9 billion from N1.6 billion, with the number of deals rising by 3.86 per cent to 3,066 deals from 2,952 deals.

The significant spike in the trading volume was due to the 1.1 billion shares of Neimeth traded during the session in an off-market deal. UBA sold 16.0 million equities, Access Holdings transacted 13.0 million stocks, Transcorp traded 11.8 million shares, and Zenith Bank exchanged 9.9 million stocks.