By Dipo Olowookere
The year-to-date loss of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) increased to 15.42 percent after the market printed a decline of 0.30 percent on Thursday. In layman terms, this clearly means the country’s stock market has lost 15.42 percent from the first trading day of 2019, Wednesday, January 2, to yesterday, which was December 19.
The loss yesterday was caused by selloffs in some stocks of the market’s shakers and movers, including MTN Nigeria and some banking stocks like Access Bank.
This led to the reduction of the All-Share Index (ASI) by 81.28 points to 26,584.45 points from 26,665.73 points, and the slashing of the market capitalisation by N38 billion to N12.832 trillion from N12.870 trillion.
Business Post reports that there were heavy activities in the banking sector of the market on Thursday, especially on Access Bank, resulting in the lender closing as the most active stock with 147.7 million units sold for N1.4 billion.
Zenith Bank traded 27.4 million shares valued at N506.3 million, FCMB transacted 23.1 million equities worth N41.5 million, GTBank exchanged 21.6 million shares for N639.9 million, while Fidelity Bank traded 13.9 million stocks valued at N30.3 million.
These transactions and others helped to increase the total volume of shares traded yesterday at the stock exchange by 30.74 percent to 304.2 million from 232.7 million. But sadly, they did little to change the value of the trades, which marginally went down by 1.18 percent to N3.15 billion from N3.19 billion.
On the price movement chart, MTN Nigeria led the losers’ log with a price depreciation of N2.80 to finish at N112.50 per unit, while UPDC Reit closely followed with a decline of 35 kobo to close at N3.30 per share.
UAC Nigeria fell by 15 kobo to end at N8.60 per unit, International Breweries reduced by 10 kobo to settle at N9.40 per share, while Access Bank also depreciated by 10 kobo to trade at N9.80 per unit.
On the gainers’ table, GTBank took the top spot with a growth of 50 kobo to close at N30 per share, while GlaxoSmithKline also increased by the same value, 50 kobo, to finish at N5.75 per unit.
Stanbic IBTC gained 20 kobo to end at N37.20 per share, Fidelity Bank rose by 12 kobo to settle at N2.20 per share, while United Capital gained 7 kobo to end at N2.37 per unit.
