Stock Market Sheds N235b as Sell Pressure Persists

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Massive sell pressure in the equities listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continued on Monday, resulting in the market losing N235 billion at the close of trading activities.

The weakness in investors’ confidence started last Friday when the stock market slumped for the first time in 11 days, depreciating by N80 billion.

Investors had hoped this would be reversed today when market activities resume, but that was never the case.

Business Post reports that a total of 40 equities declined on the floor of the NSE today, in contrast to 10 equities that moved up.

Nestle suffered the biggest loss after declining by N37 to close at N798 per share and was trailed by Seplat, which fell by N20 to finish at N380 per share.

Nigerian Breweries crashed by N7.33k to end at N141.67k per share, Forte Oil weakened by N2.52k to finish at N47.89k per share, while Zenith Bank went down by N1.3k to close at N17.10k per share.

Our correspondent further reports that the All-Share Index (ASI) depleted by 678.77 points or 2.41 percent to close at 27,513.69 points, while the market capitalisation diminished by N235 billion to finish at N9.511 trillion and the year-to-date (YTD) return reduced to 2.38 percent.

Dangote Cement led the gainers’ chart on Monday after growing by N6.51k to finish at N163.1k per share, while Presco rose by N2 to end at N49 per share.

Stanbic IBTC advanced by 50k to close at N26.50k per share, UACN advanced by 46k to end at N15.60k per share and United Capital added 5k to finish at N2.99k per share.

At the close of trading activities today, investors staked the total sum of N7.9 billion on 671 million shares executed in 4,034 deals.