By Dipo Olowookere
Despite the positive Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday, trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened for the week on a bearish note with 0.82 percent loss.
According to the stats office, the nation’s GDP grew by 1.81 percent in the third quarter of 2018, though lower than the 1.9 percent projected by most analysts.
It was observed that the decline recorded yesterday was majorly buoyed by the poor performances of some blue-chip stocks at the market.
For example, Nestle Nigeria, which topped the losers’ chart, lost N64 of its share value yesterday to settle at N1485 per share.
Mobil Oil Nigeria, which followed, went down by N14.80k to finish at N160 per share, while Nigerian Breweries depreciated by N2 to close at N78 per share.
UAC of Nigeria, which recently announced a change in its leadership, suffered a 70 kobo loss on Monday to end at N9.30k per share, while Stanbic IBTC declined by 50 kobo to stay at N46 per share.
On the other side, Forte Oil emerged as the biggest gainer after appreciating by N1.15k to settle at N19.15k per share.
Okomu Oil grew by N1 to close at N73 per share, while Dangote Cement increased its share value by 20 kobo to end at N184.20k per share.
Vitafoam appreciated by 18 kobo to close at N3.44k per share, while UBA garnered 15 kobo to quote at N7.65k per share.
Business Post observed that during trading yesterday, shares of Diamond Bank dominated the space, taking the top spot on the activity chart with a turnover of 44.9 million units sold for N45.6 million.
It was trailed by FBN Holdings, which traded 28.2 million shares for N214.2 million, and Sterling Bank, which transacted 15.4 million units worth N25.5 million.
UBA exchanged 8.9 million equities valued at N67.9 million, while Zenith Bank traded 8.9 million worth N207.8 million.
A further analysis showed that the financial stocks recorded a total turnover of 143.9 million shares sold N1 billion, while consumer goods stocks traded 7.2 million units worth N389 million.
At the end of the day, a total of 164.6 million shares worth N1.7 billion exchanged hands yesterday against the 179 million equities worth N1.6 billion traded in the previous session.
This indicated that the total volume of traded equities on Monday dropped by 8.05 percent, while the value went up by 7.07 percent.
A look at the market indices showed that while the All-Share Index (ASI) declined by 252.09 points to finish at 30,614.73 points, the market capitalisation reduced by N92 billion to settle at N11.177 trillion.
