Investors lose N259.23bn as week begins negative
The Nigerian Stock Exchange equities market segment on Monday began the trading week southward, as market capitalisation lost N259 billion, following sell-off on high capitalised stocks.
The All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 497.45 absolute points, representing a dip of 2.24 per cent to close at 21,700.98 points. Similarly, the overall market capitalisation size shed N259 billion to close at N11.309 trillion
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The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which are; Nigerian Breweries, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank and Unilever Nigeria.
All sector indices closed negative with the Banking index shed nine per cent incurring the biggest loss. The Consumer Goods, Insurance, Oil and Gas, and Industrial Goods indices all followed suit with a decline of 3.67 per cent, 1.5 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 0.8 per cent.
Analysts at Afrinvest Limited said that “We expect the bearish trend to persist as the pandemic continues. We, however, note that current prices present opportunities for bargain hunting.”
This week, analysts at Imperial Asset Managers Limited expected market sentiment to remain volatile, given the circumstances surrounding oil prices and macro-economy development, saying that “However, we also expect investors to react to more dividend pronouncements and position in stocks with good fundamentals.”
Market breadth closed negative, with nine gainers versus 25 losers. Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals recorded the highest price gain of 10 per cent, to close at 44 kobo, per share. May and Baker Nigeria followed with a gain 8.94 per cent to close at N1.95, while Custodian Investment rose by 8.65 per cent, to close N5.65, per share.
Flour Mill of Nigeria went up by 7.77 per cent to close at N20.80, while Chemical and Allied Products (CAP) rose by 7.69 per cent to close at N21.00, per share.
On the other hands, Dangote Sugar Refinery, Nigerian Breweries, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Wema Bank led the losers’ chart by 10 per cent each, to close at N9.00, N27.00, N23.85, N4.50 and 45 kobo, respectively per share. United Capital followed with a decline of 9.96 per cent to close at N2.17, while Guaranty Trust Bank fell by 9.95 per cent to close at N16.75, per share.
Lafarge Africa went down by 9.90 to close at N9.10, while Unilever Nigeria shed 9.87 per cent, to close at N10.50, per share.
However, the total volume of trades rose by 22.4 per cent to 464.36 million units, valued at N3.87 billion and exchanged in 5,883 deals. Transactions in the shares of Zenith Bank topped the activity chart with 120.46 million shares valued at N1.30 billion. Guaranty Trust Bank followed with 63.27 million shares worth N1.06 billion, while FBN Holdings traded 46.68 million shares valued at N176.06 million.
Access Bank traded 31.009 million shares valued at N173.18 million, while UBA transacted 29.16 million shares worth N136.02 million.
