By Dipo Olowookere
Trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) began the week on a bad note on Monday as a result of losses posted by shares in the banking space.
The banking index closed 2.87 percent lower yesterday to have a devastating effect on the overall market, which went down by 0.90 percent at the close of transactions.
Business Post reports that the loss recorded yesterday has now reduced the year-to-date gain of the local exchange to 0.66 percent.
The All-Share Index (ASI), which stood at 31,924.51 points at the last trading session, reduced on Monday by 287.85 points to settle at 31,636.66 points.
In the same vein, the market capitalisation, which closed at N11.905 trillion last Friday, decreased by N107 billion yesterday to finish at N11.798 trillion.
It was observed that the total of number of depreciating stocks were more that the total number of appreciating equities yesterday, with 19 stocks staying on the losers’ chart against 14 equities on the gainers’ table.
Staying on top of the losers’ chart on Monday was Nestle Nigeria, which suffered a N30 loss to close at N1480 per unit.
Okomu Oil followed with N1 of its share value lost to end at N79 per unit, while Lafarge Africa went down by 45 kobo to finish at N12.50k per share.
International Breweries depreciated by 30 kobo to close at N26.70k per share, while Ecobank also declined by 30 kobo to quote at N13.70k per share.
On the other hand, it was a good trading day for NASCON as its share price appreciated by N1.70k to finish at N21.70k per share.
Cadbury Nigeria followed it closely with a price appreciation of N1.10k to end at N12.10k per share, while Zenith Bank increased by 30 kobo to close at N22.75k per share.
Flour Mills rose by 25 kobo to finish at N19.25k per share, while FBN Holdings moved up by 10 kobo to settle at N8.20k per share.
An analysis of the activity chart on Monday showed that while the volume of shares traded yesterday decreased by 44.96 percent, the value increased by 5.08 percent.
A total of 128.4 million shares worth N2.4 billion exchanged hands on Monday compared with the 233.3 million units sold for N2.3 billion last Friday.
Shares of FBN Holdings caught the attention of investors at the market yesterday, with a turnover of 34.1 million units sold for N279.2 million.
Zenith Bank traded 21.3 million units worth N484.4 million, while UBA transacted 17.5 million shares worth N134.3 million.
Access Bank traded 11.5 million equities worth N69.2 million, while GTBank exchanged 5.7 million shares valued at N211.8 million.
