By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) witnessed a heavy selloff on Thursday and this impacted the market negatively by 1.27 per cent.
The action of investors also cut down the All-Share Index (ASI) by 444.00 points to 34,577.26 points from the previous session’s 35,021.26 points. It also reduced the market capitalisation of the exchange by N232 billion to N18.072 trillion from N18.304 trillion of the midweek trading session.
Business Post reports that the selloff cut across all the key sectors of the market, with the banking space the worst-hit due to the 4.14 per cent decline it suffered.
The insurance sector depreciated by 3.72 per cent, the consumer goods counter lost 1.07 per cent, the industrial goods sector went down by 0. 74 per cent, while the oil and gas index fell by 0.68 per cent.
Only six stocks appreciated in price on Thursday as against the 40 depreciating equities, leaving the market breadth to close negative as the weak investor sentiment persists.
Okomu Oil was the highest price gainer with the price appreciation of N8 it recorded to close at N88 per share. GlaxoSmithKline gained 10 kobo to finish at N6.70 per unit, Unilever Nigeria rose by 5 kobo to N13.05 per share, FTN Cocoa appreciated by 3 kobo settle at 40 kobo per unit, while Mutual Benefits gained 2 kobo to sell at 24 kobo per share.
On the losers’ chart, Lafarge Africa claimed the number one spot with a price depreciation of N2.25 to settle at N20.25 per share and was followed by Guinness Nigeria, which lost N1.75 to sell at N16.05 per unit.
Zenith Bank depreciated by N1.45 to trade at N22 per share, Dangote Sugar lost N1.30 to trade at N17.60 per unit, while MTN Nigeria went down by N1.20 to close at N155 per share.
On the activity chart, the trading volume rose by 95.68 per cent to 553.9 million units from 283.1 million units, the trading value increased by 94.10 per cent to N6.6 billion from N3.4 billion, while the number of deals jumped by 67.08 per cent to 6,441 deals from 3,855 deals.
GTBank was the most active stock with the sale of 87.0 million units worth N2.8 billion, while Zenith Bank traded 65.0 million units valued at N1.5 billion.
Transcorp transacted 52.5 million shares for N46.1 million, Regency Alliance Insurance traded 46.6 million equities for N9.8 million, while FBN Holdings exchanged 43.2 million stocks valued at N280.2 million.
Adedapo Adesanya