By Dipo Olowookere
Nigerian stocks had a bearish start to the week on Monday on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited, losing 0.10 per cent.
Profit-taking in equities like Zenith Bank, GTBank, UBA, Cadbury, Lafarge Africa and 23 others weakened the market during the session as they outweighed the bargain-hunting in Stanbic IBTC, FBN Holdings, Ardova and 10 others.
As a result of this selling pressure, which cut across most of the sectors, the All-Share Index (ASI) was trimmed by 39.70 points to 38,686.40 points from 38,726.10 points, while the market capitalisation was slashed by N21 billion to N20.164 trillion from N20.185 trillion.
Business Post reports that only the energy sector closed positive yesterday, rising by 0.31 per cent as the insurance space lost 1.91 per cent, banking went down by 0.86 per cent, consumer goods counter declined by 0.09 per cent, while the industrial goods sector dropped 0.04 per cent.
At the trading session, investors bought and sold 210.8 million shares worth N1.5 billion in 3,958 deals as against the 199.1 million shares worth N1.6 billion traded in 3,150 deals last Friday.
This indicated that apart from the trading value, which went down by 5.72 per cent, the trading volume and the number of deals increased by 5.87 per cent and 25.65 per cent respectively.
It was observed that there was a renewed interest in the shares of FBN Holdings, closing as the most active stock after it transacted 16.6 million units valued at N121.0 million.
Coronation Insurance traded 16.5 million stocks worth N9.1 million, Chams traded 16.2 million equities valued at N3.3 million, Zenith Bank exchanged 15.9 million shares for N365.9 million, while Japaul transacted 13.2 million stocks valued at N7.2 million.
On the price movement chart, Juli was on top of the losers’ table after its share price went down by 9.93 per cent to N1.36, followed by CWG, which lost 9.80 per cent to close at N1.38.
Japaul depreciated by 8.47 per cent to 54 kobo, Honeywell Flour decreased by 5.69 per cent to N1.16, while FCMB declined by 4.55 per cent to N3.15.
On the gainers’ log, Morison Industries occupied the juiciest spot after its price went up by 9.73 per cent to close for the session at N1.24.
Conoil appreciated by 9.63 per cent to sell for N20.50, Veritas Kapital gained 8.33 per cent to trade at 26 kobo, Africa Prudential rose by 7.63 per cent to N6.35, while Royal Exchange went up by 6.94 per cent to 77 kobo.
