Stock Market Bleeds as CBN Cancels MPC Meeting, Investors Lose N65b

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened for the new week on Monday on a negative note.

The stock market, which reversed a downward trend last Friday, resumed bearish today after pointing south by 0.40 percent, shrinking the year-to-date return to 17.44 percent.

The loss occurred as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) failed to hold its first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting for the year today as a result of lack of quorum.

Like in America, where the Senate failed to pass the country’s spending bill, leading to a government shutdown since last Friday, the Nigerian Senate has failed to confirm nominees of the committee sent to the upper parliament last year by President Muhammadu Buhari as a result of an impasse with the executive.

This made it impossible for the MPC meeting to hold today as earlier planned. However, the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, announced today that the rates, as announced at its last meeting in November 2017, would be retained.

At the close of transactions on the floor of the Nigerian bourse on Monday, the All-Share Index (ASI), which stood at 45,092.83 points on Friday, depreciated by 180.30 points on Monday to settle at 44,912.53 points.

Also, the market capitalisation, which was N16.155 trillion at the last trading session, decreased by N64.6 billion to finish at N16.090 trillion when the market closed for the day.

Business Post reports that the Conglomerates sector led the activity chart on Monday with 3.9 billion shares worth N9.4 billion transacted by investors, while the Financial Services industry followed with 523.2 million equities valued at N5.2 billion exchanged.

At the close of business, the total volume of equities exchanged by investors increased by 231.25 percent from 1.3 billion to 4.4 billion.

Also, the total value of stocks transacted rose marginally by 84.57 percent from N8.6 billion last Friday to N15.9 billion today.

Transcorp continued today as the most traded equity in terms of volume on the local bourse, selling 3.9 billion shares worth N9.3 billion.

Diamond Bank followed after trading 85.8 million shares valued at N297.9 million, and FCMB, which transacted 76.7 million equities for N267 million.

Fidelity Bank sold 69 million shares for N266 million, while FBN Holdings exchanged 57.7 million shares valued at N785.7 million.

The market breadth closed at equilibrium on Monday with 26 price gainers and losers. The total number of equities that traded flat today were 43.

Nestle led the price losers’ chart today after depreciating by N30 to settle at N1470 per share, and was followed by Unilever, which went down by N2.80k to close at N44.20k per share.

Forte Oil declined by N1.78k to finish at N50 per share, GTBank lost N1.20k to close at N53.51k per share, while UAC of Nigeria crashed by 39k to end at N17.10k per share.

On the flip side, Beta Glass topped the gainers’ table after adding N2.82k to its share value to close at N59.38k per share.

PZ Cussons rose by N1.10k to finish at N23.10k per share, and International Breweries grew by N1 to end at N64 per share.

Furthermore, Cadbury advanced by 93k to close at N15.99k per share, while Nigerian Breweries increased by 81k to settle at N143 per share.