Equities Suffer First Loss in 2021, Shed N393bn

By Dipo Olowookere

The bears did not have to wait for long to make an appearance at the nation’s stock market. On Tuesday, January 5, 2021, which was the second trading session of the new year, the market suffered a loss for the first, depreciating by 1.83 per cent.

The bearish outcome was caused by the profit-taking embarked upon by investors after shares in their possession have made substantial appreciation in the past weeks.

Business Post reports that at the close of transactions, a total of 34 equities depreciated in value. Only 16 stocks appreciated in value, leaving the market breadth negative.

Apart from the insurance sector, which gained 1.56 per cent, every other sector closed negative with the banking space the worst hit, declining by 2.98 per cent.

The industrial goods index depreciated by 2.74 per cent, the consumer goods counter went down by 0.32 per cent, and the energy space declined by 0.03 per cent.

BUA Cement was the heaviest price loser yesterday, depreciating by N5 to close at N80 per share, MTN Nigeria lost N4.70 to end at N165.20 per unit, Zenith Bank dropped N1.10 to settle at N24.60 per share, Okomu Oil fell by N1 to close at N90 per unit, while GTBank lost 95 kobo to trade at N32.55 per share.

Conversely, Seplat was the biggest price gainer, rising by N7.70 to end at N410 per share, BOC Gases gained 93 kobo to close at N10.50 per unit, Africa Prudential rose by 35 kobo to settle at N6.75 per share, Eterna grew by 35 kobo to finish at N5.75 per unit, while Vitafoam appreciated by 20 kobo to sell at N8.75 per share.

The activity level improved on Tuesday as the trading volume rose by 119.73 per cent to 465.7 million shares from 211.9 million shares, while the trading value grew by 263.56 per cent to N5.1 billion from N1.4 billion, with the number of deals rising by 120.27 per cent to 7,573 deals from 3,438 deals.

During the trading session, Transcorp was the most active stock, selling 69.2 million units valued at N64.8 million, while Zenith Bank traded 31.7 million units worth N788.3 million.

FCMB sold 26.6 million shares valued at N80.2 million, Japaul exchanged 26.0 million equities worth N19.3 million, while Access Bank transacted 24.5 million stocks for N214.6 million.

When trading activities were halted for the day, the All-Share Index (ASI) was down by 751.25 points to 40,396.14 points from 41,147.39 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N393 billion to N21.122 trillion from N21.515 trillion.