By Dipo Olowookere
Nigerian equities kicked off the new week yesterday on a bearish note with continued sell-offs in stocks in the Consumer Goods sector dragging the market down by 0.25 percent.
Though the banking and Industry Goods industries recorded gains on Monday, they were unable to offset the losses witnessed in the consumer goods sector.
Business Post reports that there was a huge profit taking in large cap stocks like Nigerian Breweries, which topped the losers’ chart yesterday after going down by N4.50k to settle at N128.50k per share.
Cadbury Nigeria fell by N1.65k to close at N15.45k per share, while Stanbic IBTC slumped by N1 to finish at N49 per share.
Ecobank depreciated by 95k to end at N18.85k per share, while NASCON declined by 85k to settle at N19.35k per share.
However, Dangote Cement topped the gainers’ table on Monday after adding N1 to its share value to finish at N265 per share.
PZ Cussons grew by 55k to close at N23.55k per share, while GTBank appreciated by 40k to end at N45.30k per share.
Zenith Bank advanced by 40k to settle at N28 per share, while UCAP gained 18k to close at N3.37k per share.
Yesterday, the volume of equities transacted by investors depreciated by 23.19 percent just as the value went down by 25.91 percent.
A total of 327.8 million shares exchanged hands on Monday in 5,366 deals worth N5.3 billion compared with the 426.7 million equities traded last Friday in 5,191 deals worth N7.1 billion.
It was observed that there was a huge buying interest in Zenith Bank, which sold 129 million units yesterday worth N3.5 billion.
FBN Holdings sold 23.8 million shares valued at N276.3 million, while Fidelity Bank traded 16.7 million equities worth N38 million.
Access Bank transacted 11.7 million shares for N136.8 million, while Transcorp exchanged 11.5 million equities valued at N19.2 million.
Yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) depreciated by 103.30 points to close at 41,832.63 points, while the market capitalisation went down by N37 billion to settle at N14.965 trillion.
