Stock Market Sheds 0.25% on Selloffs in BUA Cement, Others

By Dipo Olowookere

The stock market in Nigeria depreciated by 0.25 per cent on Monday on the back of selloffs in some value equities like BUA Cement, GTCO, UBA, Zenith Bank and others.

Profit-taking by investors brought down the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited by 97.95 points to 38,864.33 points from 38,962.28 points and depleted the market capitalisation by N51 billion to N20.249 trillion from N20.300 trillion.

Business Post reports that two of the five key sectors of the exchange closed bearish yesterday and they were the insurance and industrial goods, which fell by 2.34 per cent and 1.09 per cent respectively.

The energy counter appreciated by 1.20 per cent, the banking index improved by 0.40 per cent, while the consumer goods space grew by 0.24 per cent.

Despite the loss reported on Monday, the market breadth closed positive as there were 20 price gainers and 12 price losers led by Axa Mansard Insurance, which fell by 9.94 per cent to N2.99.

Chams lost 4.35 per cent to trade at 22 kobo, Sovereign Trust Insurance declined by 4.00 per cent to 24 kobo, Mutual Benefits Assurance went down by 3.33 per cent to 29 kobo, while BUA Cement fell by 2.94 per cent to N66.00.

On the gainers’ log, University Press was on top with a price appreciation of 9.80 per cent to trade at N1.12, Transcorp Hotels rose by 9.70 per cent to N5.43, Courtville appreciated by 9.38 per cent to 35 kobo, Oando gained 6.07 per cent to sell for N5.24, while Cutix jumped by 5.38 per cent to N4.90.

On the activity chart, investors traded 139.5 million shares worth N1.7 billion in 3,539 deals compared with the 633.5 million shares worth N6.5 billion traded in 3,228 deals last Friday, indicating that the trading volume and value went down by 77.99 per cent and 73.44 per cent respectively, while the number of deals increased by 9.63 per cent.

Sovereign Trust Insurance ended the trading session as the most active stock with 19.1 million units of its shares sold for N4.4 million and was trailed by Fidelity Bank, which traded 11.9 million shares valued at N29.0 million.

Furthermore, GTCO transacted 11.2 million equities valued at N307.1 million, Transcorp traded 10.1 million stocks worth N9.3 million, while Courtville exchanged 8.0 million shares for N2.7 million.