By Dipo Olowookere
The bears seem to have found comfort on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) lately as they have refused to allow the bulls to breathe, taking the spotlight on the red carpet.
This is already causing some investors to panic because prices of stocks they purchased during the bull period in April and May are crashing to the levels seen in March 2020.
However, this is good news to investors who missed out at that time and have waited for the bus to visit the park again to pick new passengers before the end of the year.
Yesterday, the equity market further depreciated by 0.90 percent due to a heavy selloff in the banking space, which had its index down by 4.58 percent.
The insurance sector fell by 1.02 percent, the consumer goods sector went down by 0.93 percent, the energy counter crashed by 0.30 percent, while the industrial goods index declined by 0.02 percent.
At the close of transactions, the All-Share Index (ASI) went down by 220.65 points to settle at 24,374.40 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N115 billion to close at N12.715 trillion.
On the activity chart, UBA was the most traded stock at the session, transacting 23.9 million units valued at N153.2 million, while FBN Holdings followed with 21.6 million equities traded for N110.5 million.
GTBank exchanged 21.1 million shares for N446.0 million, Transcorp transacted 16.8 million stocks valued at N10.4 million, while Zenith Bank traded 15.5 million shares worth N236.5 million.
At the close of the market, a total of 180.1 million stocks worth N1.9 billion were traded in 3,889 deals on Thursday compared with the 198.0 million shares valued at N1.0 billion transacted in 3,772 deals on Wednesday.
This indicated that while the volume of traded shares depreciated by 9.03 percent, the value of the trades and the number of deals executed by investors increased by 78.25 percent and 3.10 percent respectively.
Business Post reports that Unilever Nigeria reported the heaviest decline yesterday as its stocks’ value reduced by N1.50 to N13.80 per share.
GTBank depreciated by N1.15 to close at N20.70 per unit, Flour Mills dropped N1 to sell at N17.65 per share, Zenith Bank decreased by 90 kobo to N14.80 per unit, while Cadbury lost 65 kobo to trade at N6.75 per share.
On the gainers’ table, Red Star Express claimed the juiciest spot after adding 15 kobo to its share price to sell at N3.30 per unit.
Neimeth gained 14 kobo to close at N1.63 per unit, NAHCO appreciated by 11 kobo to settle at N2.10 per unit, Jaiz Bank grew by 4 kobo to sell at 59 kobo per share, while Unity Bank gained 3 kobo to finish at 50 kobo per unit.
Adedapo Adesanya