Falling Stock Prices Glue NSE Index in Red Zone Fourth Day

By Dipo Olowookere

For the fourth consecutive day, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed bearish today as the prices of stocks continue to fall at the market.

Since the beginning of this week, the equities market have remained in the negative territory as investors take profit of the gains made in the early days of this month.

When market activities were brought to an end on Thursday, the market indices depreciated by 0.99 percent, reducing the year-to-date gain to 13.82 percent.

Specifically, the All-Share Index (ASI), which stood at 43,963.40 points yesterday, closed today at 43,529.06 points.

Likewise, the market capitalisation, which ended at N15.760 trillion on Wednesday, finished at N15.604 trillion on Thursday.

Business Post reports that losses recorded by Dangote Cement and 29 other stocks contributed to the decline today.

Dangote Cement lost N8.84k to close at N260.16k per share, while Guinness Nigeria depreciated by N4.15k to finish at N116.10k per share.

Stanbic IBTC went down by N2.28k to end at N43.72k per share, GlaxoSmithKline fell by N2.2k to settle at N18.88k per share, while Unilever decreased by N1.50k to close at N44.50k per share.

At the other end, Nestle led the 22 gaining stocks at the market on Thursday after increasing by N25 to close at N1500 per share.

It was followed by Seplat, which improved by N7.58k to settle at N692.58k per share, and Dangote Sugar, which rose by N2.3k to end at N22.1k per share.

Flour Mills grew by 80k to finish at N30.80k per share, while FBN Holdings appreciated by 50k to close at N13 per share.

Though the volume of shares traded today by investors depreciated by 6.63 percent, the value rose sharply by 27.98 percent.

A total of 500.9 million equities worth N6.6 billion exchanged hands on Thursday compared with 536.4 million units valued at N5.2 billion sold on Wednesday.

The Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 389 million shares traded for N5.1 billion, while the Conglomerates sector followed with 68.8 million equities transacted for N164 million.