Price Losses by Tier-1 Banks Sink Nigerian Equities by 0.12%

By Dipo Olowookere

Local stocks suffered further losses on Friday following the poor performance put up by equities in the banking space.

The banking index closed 1.47 percent lower yesterday following price depreciation recorded by Zenith Bank, GTBank and other big players in the sector.

At the close of trading on Friday, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) declined by 0.12 percent with the year-to-date loss at 15.32 percent.

While the All-Share Index (ASI) lost 40.42 absolute points to close at 32,383.15 points, the market capitalisation reduced by N15 billion to settle at N11.822 trillion.

However, despite the loss at the market yesterday, the market breadth finished positive with 21 price gainers and 15 price losers.

Zenith Bank led the fallers’ chart after going down by 85 kobo to close at N21.55k per share and was followed by GTBank, which went down by 35 kobo to finish at N36.40k per share.

FBN Holdings lost 20 kobo to end at N8.90k per share, Union Bank crashed by 10 kobo to settle at N5 per share, while NASCON also shed 10 kobo to close at N18.50k per share.

Conversely, Nigerian Breweries topped the risers’ log yesterday, gaining N3.20k at the close of business to finish at N89.70k per share.

Guinness Nigeria rose by 95 kobo to end at N79 per share, while UAC of Nigeria grew by 80 kobo to settle at N11.50k per share.

Newrest ASL Nigeria appreciated by 40 kobo to finish at N6 per share, while Cadbury Nigeria also increased by 40 kobo to end at N9.65k per share.

A look at the activity chart showed that the Financial Services sector led with 142.2 million shares sold for N1.1 billion with the Consumer Goods industry following with 8.7 million equities traded for N297 million.

Further analysis of the chart indicated that more shares of FCMB were traded yesterday, accounting for 42.1 million units worth N72.3 million.

Access Bank exchanged 32.6 million equities valued at N262 million, while Zenith Bank sold 12.4 million shares worth N276 million.

Fidelity Bank exchanged 11.4 million equities valued at N20.7 million, while GTBank transacted 10.5 million shares for N384.3 million.

At the end of the day, the volume of equities traded increased by 10.11 percent, while the value went down by 3.72 percent.

A total of 166.7 million shares exchanged hands on Friday in 2,431 deals worth N1.49 billion in contrast to the 151.4 million equities sold on Thursday in 2,356 deals valued at N1.54 billion.