Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The stock market in Nigeria recorded a year-to-date loss of 0.15 per cent after trading activities closed 0.63 per cent lower on Thursday.
It was keenly observed that sustained profit-taking across the major sectors of the market contributed to the fall witnessed on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday.
Business Post reports that investors continued to book profit in financial services equities, leading to the 2.60 per cent decline seen in the banking sector yesterday and the 1.54 per cent decrease in the insurance space.
During the trading day, the consumer goods counter went down by 0.51 per cent, the energy sector dropped 0.20 per cent, while the industrial goods index depreciated by 0.13 per cent.
At the close of transactions, investor sentiment as measured by the market breadth was strongly negative as a result of the decline recorded by 30 equities in contrast to the growth witnessed by 10 stocks.
University Press topped the losers’ chart with a price decline of 9.09 per cent to settle at N1.20 per share. Chams lost 8.33 per cent to close at 22 kobo per unit, UPDC REIT went down by 7.76 per cent to sell at N5.35 per share, Multiverse lost 7.69 per cent to trade at 24 kobo per unit, while Japaul declined by 5.56 per cent to quote at 68 kobo per share.
Conversely, RT Briscoe witnessed a 10 per cent growth on Thursday to close at 22 kobo per share, Cornerstone Insurance gained 8.47 per cent to finish at 64 kobo per unit, Royal Exchange appreciated by 8 per cent to quote at 27 kobo per share, NAHCO went up 6.51 per cent to N2.29 per unit, while Niger Insurance gained 4.55 per cent to close at 23 kobo per share.
Despite the loss yesterday, the level of activity improved as investors traded 426.3 million shares worth N4.8 billion in 4,972 deals compared with the 244.2 million stocks worth N2.7 billion transacted in 4,083 deals at the midweek session. This signified that the trading volume, value and number of deals rose yesterday by 74.56 per cent, 79.00 per cent and 21.77 per cent respectively.
It was observed that the activity chart was buoyed by transactions in the shares of FBN Holdings as it traded 129.8 million units valued at N949.3 million.
Zenith Bank transacted 37.7 million equities worth N912.0 million, Dangote Sugar exchanged 37.1 million stocks for N688.4 million, GTBank sold 35.4 million shares for N1.1 billion, while Transcorp traded 28.9 million equities for N26.6 million.
By the time trading activities were halted for the day at 2:30 pm yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) further went down by 253.13 points to 40,212.19 points from 40,465.32 points, while the market capitalisation reduced by N132 billion to end at N21.037 trillion versus N21.169 trillion of the previous day.
