Nigeria’s Stock Exchange Crumbles 0.24% Despite Strong Investor Sentiment

By Dipo Olowookere

A 0.24 per cent loss was suffered by the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Monday on the back of profit-taking taking in a few high-cap stocks.

The sectorial performance showed that the consumer goods and the industrial goods sectors were the laggards yesterday, depreciating by 0.43 per cent and 0.04 per cent, respectively.

However, insurance counter improved by 2.48 per cent, the energy index appreciated by 1.14 per cent, and the banking space expanded by 0.68 per cent.

Unfortunately, the trio could not stop Nigeria’s stock exchange from going down at the close of transactions on the first trading session of the week.

Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) declined by 227.69 points to settle at 96,205.84 points, in contrast to last Friday’s 96,433.53 points, and the market capitalisation went down by N111 trillion or 0.20 per cent to finish at N55.283 trillion compared with the preceding session’s N55.394 trillion.

With 34 appreciating stocks and 20 depreciating stocks, the market breadth index was positive yesterday, with investor sentiment bullish despite the poor outcome caused by selling pressure in the two sectors earlier mentioned.

Julius Berger lost 10.00 per cent to trade at N153.45, Transcorp Power collapsed by 9.99 per cent to N301.70, McNichols declined by 9.40 per cent to N1.35, University Press weakened by 8.99 per cent to N2.43, and Cutix tumbled by 6.00 per cent to N2.82.

Conversely, Eterna and Tantalizers appreciated by 10.00 per cent each to N33.00 and 77 Kobo apiece, Oando gained 9.95 per cent to sell at N89.50, FTN Cocoa increased by 9.93 per cent to N1.66, and UAC Nigeria jumped by 9.81 per cent to N22.95.

During the session, Jaiz Bank was the most traded stock with 247.1 million units valued at N537.1 million, Zenith Bank transacted 173.5 million units worth N6.4 billion, FBN Holdings exchanged 41.5 million units for N967.5 million, GTCO traded 33.9 million units valued at N1.5 billion, and Japaul sold 27.8 million units for N74.8 million.

When trading activities ended for the day, a total of 774.4 million shares worth N14.7 million exchanged hands in 10,412 deals versus the 392.5 million shares valued at N12.0 billion traded in 7,981 deals last Friday, representing an increase in the trading volume, value and number of deals by 97.30 per cent, 22.50 per cent and 30.46 per cent, respectively.