By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited crashed by 1.81 per cent on Wednesday after sell-offs in shares of MTN Nigeria, UPDC and others brought the All-Share Index (ASI) below the 43,000 points threshold.
Data from the exchange indicated that the benchmark index depreciated by 784.89 points to settle at 42,463.16 points compared with 43,248.05 points of the preceding day.
In the same vein, the market capitalisation of the trading platform decreased by N410 billion as it closed at N22.157 trillion compared with the previous day’s N22.567 trillion.
The poor outing of the market yesterday was caused by MTN Nigeria and this arose from the decision of investors to sell their stocks to possibly buy at a cheaper price through the ongoing public offer.
As a result, the value shed 10.00 per cent to settle at N171.00, Africa Prudential dropped 7.69 per cent to sell at N6.00, UPDC lost 7.48 per cent to quote at 99 kobo, Royal Exchange fell by 5.56 per cent to 51 kobo, while Honeywell Flour declined by 5.32 per cent to N3.74.
On the flip side, Cornerstone Insurance topped the gainers’ chart with a price appreciation of 7.69 per cent to trade at 56 kobo, Axa Mansard grew by 7.55 per cent to N2.28, Chams rose by 5.00 per cent to 21 kobo, NGX Group appreciated by 3.66 per cent to N17.00, while FTN Cocoa gained 2.56 per cent to sell for 40 kobo.
Business Post reports that a total of 15 stocks closed on the gainers’ chart yesterday while 23 equities were on the losers’ table, signifying a negative market breadth and weak investor sentiment.
However, the activity chart was mixed as the trading volume improved by 49.16 per cent to 335.5 million units from 224.9 million, while the trading value declined by 4.20 per cent to N3.6 billion from N3.7 billion, with the number of deals reducing by 10.16 per cent to 3,891 deals from 4,331 deals.
FBN Holdings was the most traded stock yesterday with a turnover of 134.0 million shares worth N1.6 billion, followed by Universal Insurance with 36.2 million stocks valued at N7.2 million, Zenith Bank with 18.3 million equities worth N440.1 million, GTCO with 13.6 million shares valued at N334.8 million and Transcorp with 10.5 million equities worth N10.2 million.
A look at the sectorial performance showed that the insurance and industrial goods counters grew on Wednesday by 0.77 per cent and 0.04 per cent respectively, while the banking, consumer goods and energy sectors depreciated respectively by 1.15 per cent, 0.14 per cent and 0.12 per cent.