Investors Lose N161bn Amid Attractive Bargains in Banking Stocks

By Dipo Olowookere

The sum of N161 billion was lost on Thursday by investors at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and this was mainly to profit taking.

Business Post reports that the gains recorded by the banking sector could not lift the market during the session as a result of decline printed by four other key sectors of the local bourse.

Only the banking index appreciated yesterday and this was by 0.71 percent. Others were not lucky and they heavily impacted on the market.

The industrial goods space lost 3.82 percent, the consumer goods index lost 3.30 percent, the energy counter declined by 0.20 percent and the insurance index depreciated by 0.07 percent.

The benchmark index, the All-Share Index (ASI), depreciated yesterday by 309.51 points to settle at 22,470.79 points from 22,780.30 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N161 billion to N11.711 trillion from N11.872 trillion.

Despite the loss printed by the stock market on Thursday, the market breadth ended positive with 17 price gainers in contrast to 15 price losers.

Nestle Nigeria was the biggest price loser, shedding N65 to sell at N910 per unit. Dangote Cement declined by N4.50 to trade at N131.50 per share, BUA Cement lost N1.85 to quote at N33 per unit, UAC Nigeria depreciated by 75 kobo to N6.75 per share, while Ecobank crashed by 50 kobo to N4.50 per share.

Conversely, Stanbic IBTC was the biggest price gainer for adding N1 to its share value to trade at N28.50 per unit.

Cadbury Nigeria gained 60 kobo to sell at N6.90 per share, Lafarge Africa appreciated by 35 kobo to trade at N11.70 per unit, GTBank grew by 30 kobo to quote at N18.90 per share, while Vitafoam gained 26 kobo to sell at N4.51 per share.

The activity level was mixed on Thursday as a result of growth in the volume of value of transactions and decline in number of deals executed at the market.

The volume of trades increased by 8.19 percent to 201.5 million units from 186.2 million units, the value of trades rose by 81.25 percent to N3.4 billion from N1.9 billion, but the number of deals depreciated by 1.89 percent to 3,381 from 3,446.

Access Bank was the most active stock during the session, trading 46.8 million units worth N297.3 million.

FBN Holdings transacted 32.6 million shares valued at N141.0 million, Zenith Bank traded 19.4 million stocks for N268.4 million, United Capital exchanged 13.9 million shares for N32.6 million, while GTBank traded 13.6 million equities worth N256.7 million.