By Dipo Olowookere
After closing positive for seven consecutive trading sessions, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited closed lower by 0.38 per cent on Monday, October 11, 2021. The last time the market saw red was on Tuesday, September 28, 2021, when it went down by 0.01 per cent.
But yesterday, the stock market was left tipsy by Nigerian Breweries and 16 other stocks, which witnessed selloffs, including FBN Holdings, GTCO and Honeywell Flour.
Business Post reports that Sovereign Trust Insurance was the worst-performing equity at the market on Monday as it lost 8.33 per cent to settle at 22 kobo.
Nigerian Breweries depreciated by 6.06 per cent to sell for N46.50, AIICO Insurance went down by 5.26 per cent to 90 kobo, University Press fell by 5.06 per cent to N1.50, while Universal Insurance dropped 4.55 per cent to 21 kobo.
Conversely, NEM Insurance topped the gainers’ chart of 17 members after adding 9.95 per cent to its equity price to finish the session at N2.10 and was followed by Ecobank, which gained 9.52 per cent to close at N6.90.
Champion Breweries also appreciated by 9.52 per cent to N2.30, Royal Exchange improved by 8.77 per cent to 62 kobo, while Lafarge Africa went up by 4.93 per cent to N24.50.
At the close of business, the 1.00 per cent decline in the consumer goods sector and the 0.57 per cent loss in the industrial goods counter had a huge effect on the general performance of the exchange despite the 0.75 per cent and 0.44 per cent growths posted by the banking and insurance indices respectively.
The energy space closed flat at the first trading session of this week.
When the closing gong was beaten by 2:30 pm on Monday, the All-Share Index (ASI) was down by 154.36 points to 40,714.00 points from 40,868.36 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N81 billion to N21.215 trillion from N21.296 trillion.
There was a pullback in the level of activity yesterday as a total of 191.3 million equities worth N2.6 billion exchanged hands in 4,395 deals in contrast to the 331.1 million equities worth N2.9 billion executed in 3,986 deals last Friday, indicating a decline in the trading volume and value by 42.21 per cent and 11.26 per cent respectively, while the number of deals rose by 10.26 per cent.
FBN Holdings finished the day as the most traded stock with 24.2 million units sold for N234.3 million, followed by Ecobank, which traded 19.3 million units valued at N130.4 million.
Chams transacted 17.7 million stocks valued at N4.2 million, Zenith Bank exchanged 12.2 million shares worth N300.7 million, while GTCO traded 12.1 million equities for N343.6 million.
