Equities Post 0.37% Loss Despite Rise in Trades

By Dipo Olowookere

The nation’s bourse kicked off transactions yesterday on a bearish note despite the level of activity recording significant improvement.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed with a 0.37 percent loss on Monday to expand the year-to-date loss to 4.75 percent.

Despite this, the volume of shares traded by investors broadly increased by 1872.06 percent to 2.9 billion units from 145.3 million, while the value rose by 38.53 percent to N3.9 billion from N2.8 billion in the last session.

The significant growth in the volume of transactions was as a result of the activity around Wema Bank as the company sold a total of 2.7 billion units of its shares worth N1.7 billion.

It was followed by Fidelity Bank, which traded 24.6 million units for N42.9 million, and Thomas Wyatt, which exchanged 22.9 million shares valued at N7.1 million.

Zenith Bank sold 15.6 million equities for N315.2 million, while Access Bank traded 10.4 million shares worth N66.3 million.

At yesterday’s trading session, a total of 20 equities depreciated as against the 16 price gainers, indicating that the market breadth ended negative.

Dominating the losers’ table was Dangote Cement, which lost N1.60k of its share value to settle at N182.40k per share.

It was closely followed by MTN Nigeria, which decreased by the same amount, N1.60k to end at N134 per unit, and Guinness Nigeria, which fell by 55 kobo to settle at N46.95k per share.

Oando went down by 20 kobo yesterday to finish at N3.70k per unit, while NAHCO declined by 19 kobo to end at N2.80k per share.

Conversely, Forte Oil topped the gainers’ chart on Monday after adding N2.90k to its share price to finish at N32.30k per share.

Unilever Nigeria gained N1 to close at N32 per unit, while Dangote Flour rose by 50 kobo to settle at N16.50k per share.

Zenith Bank appreciated by 20 kobo to finish at N20.20k per share, while NASCON also garnered 20 kobo to settle at N15 per unit.

Going through the major market indices reflected that the All-Share Index (ASI) depreciated on Monday by 110.37 points to finish at 29,936.33 points, while the market capitalisation went down by N41 billion to settle at N13.192 trillion.