Equities market reverse bullish run with N167bn loss

The 2-day bullish streak recorded on the Nigerian bourse retreated on Thursday, as investors lost N166.6 billion during yesterday’s trading session as a result of profit taking from preceding positive sessions.

The aggregate market value of all quoted equities at the NSE- The Market Capitalization, which tracks investors worth, consequently dropped from its opening value of N12.773trn to close at N12.607trn, representing a loss of N167bn.

The loss recorded on Thursday, reduced the All-Share Index by 1.30 per cent to 36,575.86 points and moderated the Year-to-Date returns to 36.1 per cent.

All sectoral indices also closed in the negative zone, save for the consumer goods and insurance indices, which rose 0.22 per cent and 0.70 per cent each. The industrial and Oil&Gas indices, however, ended the day with the highest loss of 1.94 per cent and 1.75 per cent respectively as a result of value depreciation in Dangote Cement, Lafarge (WAPCO), MRS, Mobil, Conoil, and Total.
The price movement table closed with 19 gainers against 25 losers, while Total volume traded decreased by 10 percent to 238.2mn shares valued at N5.5bn exchanged in 4,162 deals.

MRS recorded the highest loss of 5.02 percent to close at N33.66. Custodian and Allied Insurance followed with a drop of 5 per cent to close at N3.42. Mobil also recorded a loss of 5 per cent to close at N203.12 per share, Presco declined by 4.99 per cent to close at N68.39 while Conoil depreciated 4.97 per cent to close at N29.07.

On the other hand, UBN recorded the highest gain of 5.08 per cent to close at N6, Neimeth trailed with a gain of 5.06 percent to close at 83 kobo. Law Union & Rocks increased 4.3 per cent to close at 97 kobo, AIICO added 3.64 per cent to close at 57 kobo per share while Skye Bank improved 3.23 per cent and closed at 64 kobo.
Guaranty was the most active stock with 71mn shares valued at N2.9bn. Access Bank followed with 37.1mn shares worth N371.4m, while UBA came in third place with 21.9m shares at 208.6m. Zenith Bank exchanged 17.5mn shares at N411.1m, while FBN Holdings traded 12.5m shares worth N75m.

Afolabi Adesola