Bears Further Inflict 0.17% Pain on Nigerian Stocks

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) further depreciated on Tuesday by 0.17 percent, extending the year-to-date loss to 14.27 percent. It further caused investors at the market to lose N22 billion of their investments.

The decline followed the outpowering of the bulls by the bears during the trading session, leaving the market breadth negative as a result of the 19 price losers and 13 price gainers.

Losses were posted by industrial goods index (-0.25 percent) and insurance index (-0.37 percent), while gains were printed by banking index (0.38) and the consumer goods index (0.05), with the energy index closing flat.

Guinness Nigeria topped the losers’ chart, going down by N2 to close at N29 per unit, while Stanbic IBTC went down by N1.35 to settle at N36.80 per share.

MTN Nigeria depleted by N1 to end at N119 per share, CAP fell by 30 kobo to finish at N24 per unit, while Lafarge Africa depreciated by 15 kobo to trade at N13.85 per share.

At the other end, Okomu Oil finished as the day’s highest price riser, going up by N4.90 to end at N54.55 per unit, while Flour Mills trailed with 75 kobo to end at N19 per share.

Unilever Nigeria also rose by 75 kobo to settle at N18.45 per unit, eTranzact appreciated by 23 kobo to settle at N2.61 per share, while Zenith Bank improved by 20 kobo to finish at N18.80 per unit.

Like in the previous session, the activity level was mixed as the value of trades rose by 18.33 percent to N2.9 billion from N2.4 billion, while the number of deals increased by 7.15 percent to 3,314 deals from 3,093 deals, with the volume of transactions depreciating by 23.33 percent to 189.0 million units from 246.5 million units.

At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 46.27 points to 26,944.32 points from 26,990.59 points, while the market capitalisation reduced by N22.3 billion to N13.005 trillion from N13.027 trillion.