By Dipo Olowookere
The woes of investors continued on Wednesday on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as they lost the sum of N426 billion due to the panic caused by coronavirus.
During the midweek trading session, the total value of stocks on the local bourse, which is captured by the market capitalisation, reduced to N12.284 trillion from N12.710 trillion.
In the same vein, the situation caused the crashing of the All-Share Index (ASI) by 815.91 points to 23,572.75 points from 24,388.66 points it closed on Tuesday.
Business Post reports that the market lost 3.35 percent as the market breadth remained negative with 20 price losers and 18 price gainers, an improvement from the previous day’s three.
Nestle Nigeria was the heaviest price loser, depreciating by N101.70 to N915.30 per unit, while Dangote Cement lost N17 to settle at N153 per share.
Conoil fell by N1.60 to close at N14.60 per unit, NASCON declined by N1.15 to N10.55 per share, while Zenith Bank depreciated by N1 to sell at N12.05 per share.
On the flip side, Unilever Nigeria topped the gainers’ chart, rising by N1.05 to trade at N11.65 per unit, while UBA gained 55 kobo to quote at N6.20 per share.
Vitafoam appreciated by 38 kobo to sell at N4.45 per share, UAC Nigeria rose by 30 kobo to settle at N7.50 per unit, while FCMB gained 15 kobo to trade at N1.66 per share.
Like in the previous session, the cheap prices of stocks gave some investors an ample opportunity to expand their portfolios.
A total of 1.4 billion shares worth N17.7 billion were transacted in 7,150 deals on Wednesday compared with the 594.6 million equities valued at N4.2 billion traded in 4,010 deals on Tuesday. This indicated a 78.30 percent rise in the number of deals, 134.04 percent growth in the trading volume and 319.43 percent improvement in the value trades.
Zenith Bank was the most traded stock yesterday. The lender transacted 412.4 million units of its stocks worth N5.1 billion.
The next stock was GTBank, which sold 385.2 million units worth N7.2 billion. FBN Holdings exchanged 303.0 million shares for N1.3 billion, UBA traded 60.0 million equities valued at N370.2 million, while Wapic Insurance transacted 30.7 million stocks for N10.1 million.
An analysis of the sectoral performance yesterday showed that only the insurance counter closed in green, appreciating by 2.24 percent when activities were wrapped up.
The consumer goods sector lost 4.74 percent, the industrial goods index declined by 3.42 percent, the banking counter depreciated by 2.70 percent, while the oil and gas space went down by 0.70 percent.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka