Stocks Shed 0.11% as Investors Offload Zenith Bank, Others

By Dipo Olowookere

The stock market in Nigeria further lost 0.11 per cent on Wednesday on the back of selling pressure, especially on banking equities led by Zenith Bank.

The financial institution sold 33.7 million units of its shares valued at N795.0 million on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited yesterday to emerge as the most active stock by volume.

eTranzact transacted 21.0 million shares worth N43.2 million, Fidelity Bank traded 13.7 million stocks worth N31.4 million, Royal Exchange exchanged 13.1 million equities valued at N8.3 million, while Japaul traded 13.0 million stocks valued at N6.1 million.

Business Post reports that at the close of transactions, a total of 208.4 million shares worth N1.6 billion exchanged hands in 3,365 deals in contrast to 218.3 million shares worth N2.7 billion transacted on Tuesday in 3,524 deals.

This showed that the trading volume reduced by 4.54 per cent, the trading value went down by 41.21 per cent, while the number of deals reduced by 4.51 per cent.

It was observed that apart from the consumer goods space which grew by 0.16 per cent and the industrial goods counterpart which closed flat, every other sector finished in the bearish zone.

The banking counter went down by 0.75 per cent, the insurance sector depreciated by 0.51 per cent, while the energy counter declined by 0.10 per cent.

The losses posted by these three sectors further depleted the All-Share Index (ASI) on Wednesday by 42.61 points to 37,804.46 points from 37,847.07 points and reduced the market capitalisation by N22 billion to N19.703 trillion from N19.725 trillion.

Yesterday, the market breadth closed negative as a result of the 11 price gainers and 23 price losers led by Royal Exchange, which went down by 10.00 per cent to trade at 63 kobo.

Japaul depreciated by 9.80 per cent to sell for 46 kobo, University Press went down by 9.52 per cent to N1.52, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance lost 9.38 per cent to trade at 58 kobo, while eTranzact declined by 8.44 per cent to N2.06.

On the gainers’ log, FTN Cocoa improved by 10.00 per cent to close at 33 kobo, Ikeja Hotel gained 9.89 per cent to quote at N1.00, Cornerstone Insurance went up by 9.80 per cent to 56 kobo, Linkage Assurance improved its share value by 9.09 per cent to 60 kobo, while Mutual Benefits Assurance gained 5.26 per cent to finish at 40 kobo.