Stock Market Records Another Loss as Bears Zap N116bn

By Dipo Olowookere

For the second straight session, the stock market in Nigeria lost 0.57 per cent following sell-offs in some key banking and industrial goods stocks like Lafarge Africa, GTBank, UBA and Access Bank.

This situation caused the banking sector to go down by 0.84 per cent and left the industrial goods counter bloodied by 0.03 per cent, conquering the gains by the other benchmark sectors.

The insurance counter appreciated yesterday by 2.22 per cent, the consumer goods space grew by 0.39 per cent, while the oil/gas industry gained 0.02 per cent.

But the positive performance of these three sectors could not stop the All-Share Index (ASI) from losing at the midweek session as it went down by 221.98 points to 39,045.13 points from 39,267.11 points.

Also, the market capitalisation of the exchange decreased by N116 billion to close at N20.429 trillion in contrast to N20.545 trillion it finished on Tuesday.

Business Post reports that Daar Communications continued its fall at the equity market yesterday, further shedding 8.70 per cent to settle at 21 kobo.

Wema Bank lost 8.06 per cent to sell at 57 kobo, University Press declined by 7.76 per cent to N1.07, UAC Property depreciated by 7.23 per cent to 77 kobo, while Japaul dropped 6.82 per cent to 41 kobo.

On the other side of the divide, Linkage Assurance was on top after its equity price rose by 10.00 per cent to trade at 66 kobo, with Prestige Assurance rising by 9.76 per cent to 45 kobo.

Meyer Paints also grew by 9.76 per cent to close at 45 kobo, NEM Insurance appreciated by 9.52 per cent to N2.30, while Guinness Nigeria gained 7.28 per cent to sell for N33.90.

Yesterday, the activity chart was mixed as the trading volume improved by 3.29 per cent to 347.2 million shares from 336.1 million shares, while the trading value dropped 14.24 per cent to N2.8 billion from N3.3 billion, with the number of deals falling by 9.19 per cent to 3,990 deals from 4,394 deals.

Wema Bank closed the session as the most traded stock with the sale of 94.1 million units valued at N53.4 million and was trailed by Union Bank, which sold 78.9 million units worth N418.2 million.

Zenith Bank exchanged 22.1 million equities for N500.2 million, FBN Holdings transacted 12.0 million stocks for N87.1 million, while GTBank sold 10.7 million equities valued at N352.7 million.