Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The first trading session of the new week and month on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) ended bearish on Monday, November 2, 2020.
The market depreciated by 0.17 per cent yesterday and the major driver of this was the profit-taking embarked upon by investors during the session.
The losses were mainly from the energy sector, which was down by 1.21 per cent; the banking index, which was down by 0.78 per cent and the industrial goods space, which was down by 0.06 per cent
This reduced the All-Share Index (ASI) by 51.30 points to 30,479.39 points from 30,530.69 points and dragged the market capitalisation down by N27 billion to N15.931 trillion from N15.958 trillion.
Business Post observed that the gains printed by the insurance and consumer goods sectors, which went up respectively by 0.70 per cent and 0.57 per cent, could not sustain the growth recorded by the equities market in the previous sessions.
Mobil Oil was the heaviest price loser on Monday as shares of the energy firm depreciated by N6.10 to finish at N190 per share, while Ecobank trailed with a loss of 50 kobo to close at N5.15 per unit.
Julius Berger went down by 45 kobo to sell at N17.40 per share, C&I Leasing dropped 44 kobo to trade at N3.96 per share, while International Breweries fell by 37 kobo to quote at N7 per unit.
At the other side, Dangote Sugar ended the day as the highest price gainer after adding N1.35 to its share value to trade at N15.15 per share.
NASCON gained 85 kobo to close at N13.95 per unit, Flour Mills grew by 70 kobo to sell at N28.85 per share, Fidson appreciated by 22 kobo to settle at N4.40 per unit, while GlaxoSmithKline gained 20 kobo to quote at N6.20 per share.
The level of activity at the market on Monday was significantly lower than the previous session as the trading volume, value and number of deals went down by 53.37 per cent, 63.79 per cent and 25.43 per cent respectively.
At the market yesterday, 376.7 million shares worth N3.8 billion were traded in 6,050 deals as against the 807.8 million stocks worth N10.5 billion transacted in 8,113 deals at the previous session.
Fidelity Bank was the most active stock during the session and the company sold 49.9 million units of its stocks valued at N122.2 million.
Zenith Bank transacted 47.0 million shares for N1.0 billion, Dangote Sugar traded 30.9 million units valued at N465.2 million, Sterling Bank exchanged 30.2 million equities worth N57.6 million, while UBA transacted 29.7 million stocks valued at N226.0 million.
