Bear Tightens Grip on Nigerian Market as Equities Shed 0.48%

By Dipo Olowookere

The bearish trend at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continued during the midweek trading session with the market closing 0.48 percent. This left the year-to-date loss at 18.88 percent as the profit-taking by investors persisted.

Business Post reports that today’s loss was mainly influenced by the losses recorded by market movers like Dangote Cement, which went down by N3 to settle at N190 per share.

Nigerian Breweries, which followed, depreciated by 40 kobo to finish at N79 per share, while Zenith Bank declined by 35 kobo to close at N23.25k per share.

Oando slipped by 30 kobo to end at N4.65k per share, while FBN Holdings shed 25 kobo to quote at N7.10k per share.

Though Stanbic IBTC was the highest price gainer during Wednesday’s session, its N1.05k price appreciation was not enough to lift the market today. The stock closed at N50 per share.

PZ Cussons gained 5 kobo to finish at N11.40k per share, while GTBank rose by 60 kobo to end at N35.60k per share.

Flour Mills garnered 50 kobo to close at N20 per share, while Lafarge added 35 kobo to its share value to settle at N13.35k per share.

A look at the major market indices showed that the All-Share Index (ASI) reduced by 150.24 points to settle at 31,023.47 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N55 billion to finish at N11.326 trillion.

During today’s trading, the Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 169.2 million shares exchanged for N861 million, while the Consumer Goods industry followed with 25.2 million equities transacted for N1.6 billion.

Access Bank was the most traded stock at the market with a total turnover of 54.2 million units sold for N385.4 million.

It was followed by FCMB, which traded 31.5 million shares worth N45.7 million, and Diamond Bank, which transacted 16.7 million equities valued at N12.7 million.

UBA exchanged 11.5 million shares worth N85.2 million, while Regency Assurance transacted 11.1 million equities for N2.2 million.

At the close of business, the total number of shares traded increased by 20.94 percent from 182.2 million to 220.4 million, while the value reduced by 1.00 percent from N2.8 billion to N2.7 billion.