By Dipo Olowookere
Stocks in Nigeria fell into a level last seen over three years ago on Tuesday as investors continue to selloff their holdings in panic due to coronavirus outbreak.
The COVID-19 has saw global stock market in red and coupled with the falling price of crude oil, Nigeria, which relies heavily on the commodity to run its economy, has been one of the worst hit by the crisis.
At the market yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) depleted by 4.91 percent or 1258.88 points to settle at 24,388.66 points from 25,647.54 points.
Business Post reports that the last time the index was in the 24,000 region was on March 8, 2017, when it closed at 24,986.02 points from 25,129.27 points on March 7, 2017.
At Tuesday’s session, the market capitalisation decreased by N656 billion to N12.710 trillion from N13.366 trillion.
It was observed that the banking sector was the worst hit at the market yesterday as its index went down by 12.53 percent. The consumer goods counter lost 4.42 percent, insurance declined by 2.85 percent, industrial goods sector depreciated by 1.10 percent, while the energy index fell by 0.93 percent.
The market breadth remained negative as there were only three price advancers compared with the 33 price decliners.
Neimeth led the gainers’ chart with a price appreciation of 4 kobo to close at 44 kobo per share, Honeywell Flour rose by 3 kobo to sell at 90 kobo per unit, while NEM Insurance grew by 2 kobo to trade at N1.75 each.
On the other side of the coin, MTN Nigeria led the losers’ table after going down by N11.50 to sell at N103.50 per share, while Nigerian Breweries lost N3.65 to trade at N33.10 per unit.
Stanbic IBTC went down by N3.15 to quote at N28.35 per share, GTBank fell by N2.20 to N19.95 per unit, while CAP crashed by N2.20 to N19.95 per share.
Business Post observed that while some investors were selling in panic, others used the opportunity to increase their holdings, buying up value-stocks selling at very cheap prices.
This led to the increase in the level of activity as the volume of shares transacted improved by 220.26 percent to 594.6 million from 185.6 million, while the value moved up by 130.51 percent to N4.2 billion from N1.8 billion, with the number of deals rising by 49.07 percent to 4,010 deals from 2,690 deals.
At the close of trading activities yesterday, UBA was the most active stock, selling 166.4 million shares worth N942.7 million, while FBN Holdings sold 164.0 million equities valued at N724.8 million.
GTBank transacted 54.5 million shares for N1.1 billion, Fidelity Bank exchanged 31.9 million equities worth N51.7 million, while Zenith Bank traded 30.1 million stocks for N392.6 million.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka