By Dipo Olowookere
The sum of N188 billion was lost by the stock market in Nigeria on Monday, reducing its size to N12.577 trillion from N12.695 trillion it closed last Friday.
Business Post reports that the sustained profit-taking witnessed during the day led to the 0.93 percent loss printed by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday.
This reduced the All-Share Index (ASI) by 226.47 points to 24,109.65 points as against the previous 24,336.12 points.
It was observed that the weakening of the market on the first trading session of the week was caused by the poor outings of 17 stocks, which overpowered the gains recorded by 14 equities during the session.
Nestle Nigeria dominated the laggards’ log with a loss of N81.80, closing its share price for the day at N1,175 per share.
Beta Glass lost N6.80 to sell at N61.55 per unit, BUA Cement shed N2.10 to quote at N39.90 per share, Julius Berger depreciated by N1.80 to finish at N16.55 per share, while C&I Leasing lost 35 kobo to close at N3.80 per unit.
On the flip side, Flour Mills topped the gainers’ chart after adding 90 kobo to its share value to finish at N18.50 per share.
Zenith Bank gained 80 kobo to close at N16.05 per share, GTBank appreciated by 20 kobo to trade at N21 per share, NAHCO also gained 20 kobo to sell at N2.20 per unit, while Union Bank improved by 10 kobo to quote at N5.45 per unit.
GTBank was the most active stock of the session, transacting 60.5 million units of its shares valued at N1.3 billion, with Access Bank trading 25.3 million stocks for N161.4 million.
UBA sold 8.8 million shares worth N53.2 million, FBN Holdings exchanged 8.5 million equities for N42.8 million, while Zenith Bank traded 8.0 million shares valued at N125.8 million.
In all, a total of 189.7 million stocks worth N2.8 billion were transacted on Monday in 4,216 deals compared with last Friday’s 144.3 million shares valued at N1.5 billion traded in 3,993 deals.
This indicated a 31.44 percent, 82.91 percent and 5.58 percent increases in the volume, the value of traded shares and the number of deals executed respectively.
Business Post reports that the financial services sector of the market put up a good fight yesterday, but this covered in blood by equities in the other sectors.
The banking index grew by 1.51 percent on Monday just as the insurance counter appreciated by 1.05 percent.
However, the consumer goods sector depreciated by 3.18 percent, the industrial goods space lost 2.35 percent, while the energy sector fell by 0.04 percent.