Customs Street Suffers 0.01% Contraction as Bears Remain in Control

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited tucked in Customs Street, Lagos suffered a marginal 0.01 per cent loss on Monday after the bears refused to back down, maintaining their grip on the exchange.

Sell-offs in energy stocks, especially Seplat, affected the market yesterday, resulting in the shrinking of the All-Share Index (ASI) by 6.00 points to 47,262.61 points from 47,268.61 points.

Equally, the market capitalisation of the bourse went down during the session by N3 billion to settle at N25.472 trillion as against N25.475 trillion it closed last Friday.

At the market yesterday, the banking index grew by 0.67 per cent, the insurance sector appreciated by 0.21 per cent, the consumer goods counter went up by 0.16 per cent, while the energy index depreciated by 2.40 per cent, with the industrial goods space closing flat.

Business Post reports that despite the decline recorded by the exchange, the market breadth was positive as there were 19 price gainers and 18 price losers, indicating a positive investor sentiment.

Niger Insurance was the worst-performing stock on Monday as its value went down by 8.70 per cent to 21 kobo, AIICO Insurance dropped 5.71 per cent to 66 kobo, Linkage Assurance fell by 5.17 per cent to 55 kobo, Regency Assurance declined by 4.76 per cent to 40 kobo, while Africa Prudential lost 4.41 per cent to trade at N6.50.

Cornerstone Investment gained 9.38 per cent to emerge as the best-performing stock to close at 70 kobo and was trailed by Coronation Insurance, which rose by 8.70 per cent to 50 kobo.

FTN Cocoa improved by 8.33 per cent to 39 kobo, Honeywell Flour appreciated by 5.14 per cent to sell for N3.89, while Mutual Benefits gained 4.00 per cent to settle at 26 kobo.

Yesterday, the level of activity was better as the trading volume grew by 62.76 per cent to 291.9 million units from 179.3 million units, the trading value rose by 34.47 per cent to N2.9 billion from N2.1 billion, while the number of trades increased by 2.97 per cent to 4,792 deals from 4,654 deals.

Jaiz Bank closed the day as the busiest equity with the sale of 72.5 million units valued at N57.3 million and was trailed by Access Bank with the sale of 23.1 million units valued at N236.4 million.

UBA exchanged 20.0 million equities worth N169.1 million, Transcorp transacted 15.9 million shares worth N17.0 million, while GTCO traded 15.4 million shares valued at N399.0 million.