By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian stock market opened the week on a bearish note on Monday following losses posted by four of the five major sub-sectors of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
The equity market depreciated yesterday by 0.22 percent as investors’ appetite for local stocks continue to wane, expanding the year-to-date loss to 16.04 percent at the close of business.
Apart from the energy sector, which closed flat on Monday, others ended in the negative territory, with the insurance sector leading the pack after a 1.44 percent decline.
The banking sector followed with a 0.45 percent loss, the industrial goods index depreciated by 0.28 percent, while the consumer goods sector marginally went down by 0.01 percent.
Business Post reports that at the close of transactions yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI), which measures the overall performance of the stock market, decreased by 58.54 percent to settle at 26,390.08 points, while the market capitalisation, which gives an overview of the total value of stocks on the exchange, reduced by N28.5 billion to finish at N12.847 trillion.
Dangote Cement was the heaviest price loser during the session as the company’s shares went down by N1 each to close at N144 per unit, while Zenith Bank followed with a loss of 25 kobo to close at N17.20 per share.
NEM Insurance depreciated by on Monday 22 kobo to finish at N2.08 per unit, while UBA and Access Bank lost 5 kobo each to settle at N5.70 and N7.30 respectively.
On the flip side, May and Baker topped the gainers’ list after going up by 19 kobo to finish at N2.19 per share, while Ecobank trailed with a price appreciation of 10 kobo to end at N7.10 per unit.
Trans-Nationwide Express improved its share value by 7 kobo to close at 84 kobo per unit, Law Union and Rock Insurance appreciated by 4 kobo to settle at 51 kobo per share, while Cornerstone Insurance gained 3 kobo to finish at 35 kobo per share.
The level of transactions remained weak on Monday as the number of deals, volume and value shares traded by investors waned by 7.74 percent, 20.84 percent and 72.76 percent respectively.
A total of 245.9 million shares worth 1.4 billion were transacted by investors yesterday in 2,514 deals compared with the 310.6 million units valued at N5.0 percent exchanged in 2,725 deals last Friday.
The most active stock on the day was Omoluabi Mortgage Bank, which sold a total of 110 million units of its stocks worth N60.5 million and was closely followed by Fidelity Bank, which exchanged 25.4 million equities valued at N43.2 million.
Transcorp sold 14.4 million shares for N14.7 million, FBN Holdings also exchanged 14.4 million shares valued at N75.3 million, while GTBank traded 13.6 million stocks worth N357.8 million.
Adedapo Adesanya