Investors Sustain Selloff as Stocks Shed N40bn

By Dipo Olowookere

The first trading session of the week on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) ended on a negative note after the market lost 0.27 per cent on Monday.

This was caused by the sustained selloff by investors, who have continued to take profit, leaving the market in red for the past four consecutive trading sessions.

Yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) continued its downward movement after depreciating by 77.82 points to settle at 28,337.49 points versus 28,415.31 points of the previous session.

In the same vein, the market capitalisation further reduced by N40 billion to close at N14.812 trillion in contrast to N14.852 trillion it ended last Friday.

Apart from the value of transactions, which rose by 26.53 per cent on Monday to N5.1 billion from N4.0 billion, the two other performance indicators on the activity chart pointed south.

The trading volume reduced by 3.90 per cent to 369.2 million units from 384.1 million units, while the number of deals executed by investors decreased by 17.52 per cent to 4,750 deals from 5,759 deals.

UBA was the most attractive stock to market participants yesterday, trading 95.1 million units valued at N678.7 million and was trailed by GTBank, which transacted 65.2 million units worth N2.0 billion.

Zenith Bank exchanged 47.2 million equities valued at N944.3 million, FBN Holdings sold 37.6 million shares for N231.9 million, while Transcorp traded 28.1 million stocks worth N18.2 million.

The market breadth ended the session negative with 16 price losers and 13 price gainers, with Flour Mills dominating the losers’ table after losing N1 to close at N21 per unit.

BUA Cement depreciated by 60 kobo to finish at N40.90 per share, MTN Nigeria went down by 50 kobo to N140 per unit, International Breweries fell by 43 kobo to N4.29 per share, while Africa Prudential shed 13 kobo to close at N5.60 per unit.

On the flip side, Seplat was the highest price gainer, adding N10 to its share value to finish at N420 per unit, while Eterna gained 36 kobo to sell for N3.99 per unit.

Access Bank appreciated by 10 kobo to close at N7.90 per share, Cutix improved by 8 kobo to settle at N1.80 per unit, while FCMB grew by 5 kobo to N2.31 per share.