Bears Tighten Control of NGX as Appetite for Stocks Wanes

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited sank deeper into the domain of the bears by 0.27 per cent on Friday in the absence of positive news to trigger buying interest in local equities amid a rising appetite for risk-free investment tools.

Only nine stocks appreciated in price during the final trading session of this week compared with the 18 shares that depreciated in value.

The market was busy yesterday but it was mainly on the sell side, especially in the banking, industrial goods and energy sectors, which had their respective indices down by 2.74 per cent, 0.54 per cent and 0.12 per cent. The insurance counter rose during the session by 1.31 per cent, while the consumer goods space gained 0.12 per cent.

UBA recorded the highest volume of traded shares on Friday, selling 63.7 million units for N465.4 million as GTCO exchanged 36.4 million units for N755,4 million. Flour Mills traded 18.4 million units worth N605.9 million, Zenith Bank transacted 16.0 million units valued at N347.9 million, while FBN Holdings traded 9.5 million units for N105.9 million.

When the market closed for the day at 2:30 pm, a total of 205.1 million equities valued at N3.1 billion were transacted by investors in 3,600 deals as against the 151.9 million equities worth N2.2 billion transacted in 3,447 deals on Thursday. This showed that the volume of trades, the value of trades and the number of trades increased yesterday by 34.96 per cent, 41.78 per cent and 4.44 per cent respectively.

The company with the heaviest fall in share value on Friday was May & Baker as it dropped 10.00 per cent to trade at N3.60, RT Briscoe lost 9.09 per cent to finish at 40 Kobo, Lafarge Africa went down by 7.31 per cent to N24.10, FTN Cocoa declined by 6.25 per cent to 30 Kobo, while Ecobank depreciated by 5.66 per cent to N10.00.

On the flip side, International Breweries ended the session as the biggest price riser as its value improved by 9.09 per cent to N5.40, Linkage Assurance rose by 7.41 per cent to 58 Kobo, NEM Insurance increased by 7.26 per cent to N3.40, Red Star Express gained 5.69 per cent to trade at N2.60, while Cutix chalked up 4.85 per cent to sell at N2.38.

Business Post reports that the All-Share Index (ASI) slipped yesterday by 142.08 points to end at 51,979.92 points in contrast to the preceding session’s 52,122.00 points, while the market capitalisation shed N76 billion to settle at N28.031 trillion in compared with Thursday’s N28.107 trillion.