By Dipo Olowookere
Hours after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced President Muhammadu Buhari as winner of last weekend’s presidential election, traders at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) embarked on panic selling.
This, according to analysts at Business Post, was further fuelled by the rejection of the poll results by the main opposition in the contest, Mr Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Mr Abubakar claimed the exercise was marred by irregularities, promising to challenge the results at the court.
Moments after the former Vice President of Nigeria released his statement today, investors begin to dump their stocks to take their cash out of the market, fearing any possible post-election crisis.
By the time the market wrapped up for the day by 2:30pm today, the stock market was down by 0.71 percent after further losing N86 billion.
The market capitalisation, which closed at N12.110 trillion on Tuesday, depreciated by N86 billion to finish at N12.024 trillion.
Also, the All-Share Index (ASI), which closed at 32,473.82 points yesterday, reduced today by 229.58 points to settle at 32,244.24 points.
Nestle Nigeria, which led the losers’ log yesterday, also topped the chart today, with its share value closing N10 lower to finish at N1500 per unit.
Unilever Nigeria depreciated by N2 to finish at N41 per unit, while Zenith Bank fell by 90 kobo to close at N24.90k per share.
Oando dropped 70 kobo to settle at N6.55k per unit, while Dangote Sugar declined by 40 kobo to finish at N15 per share.
Conversely, PZ Cussons was the day’s best performer with N1.15k added to its share price to close at N13.45k per share.
Following were Julius Berger, which appreciated by N1 to end at N27.50k per share, and Union Bank, which increased by 30 kobo to finish at N6.95k per share.
NASCON jumped by 30 kobo to settle at N19.20k per share, while NPF Microfinance Bank appreciated by 13 kobo to close at N1.62k per share.
Despite the selling pressure, the volume and value of shares traded by investors increased by 41.55 percent and 10.07 percent respectively.
A total of 456.1 million shares worth N2.7 billion were traded in 5,416 deals today compared with 322.2 million equities worth N2.4 billion transacted yesterday in 4,069 deals.
The most active stock at the market on Wednesday was Diamond Bank, which sold 17.4 million units for N466.7 million.
Fidelity Bank followed with 45.1 million units sold for N108.2 million and Access Bank, which traded 33.1 million equities for N204.7 million.
Transcorp exchanged 23.5 million units worth N32.1 million, while UBA transacted 20.9 million shares worth N166.4 million.
