Stock market crashes by N124bn as investor’s book profit

Following two consecutive profitable sessions recorded on the equities segment of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Investors, Tuesday embarked on a profit taking that sent market indices N124bn and 0.96 per cent lower than previous closing figures.

The equities market capitalisation fell by N124 billion to close the day at N12.789 trillion. This brought the Year to Date returns to 37.5 per cent

The NSE All Share Index which had grown by 192 points or 0.52 per cent on Monday to close at 37,312.28 reduced by 358.87 points or 0.96 per cent to close at 36,953.41 points by the close of business on Tuesday.

Consequently, the price movement chart ended with 12 gainers against 32 losers.

Caverton, CI Leasing, Unilever, Learn Africa and Eterna Plc were the day’s top 5 losers, they dropped by 9.38, 8.81, 5, 4.85and 4.77 per cent respectively to close at N1.45 per share, N1.45 per share, N38, 98 kobo and N3.99 per share.

Conversely, Vitafoam led the day’s gainers with an appreciation of 4.98 per cent in its share price to close at N2.95 per share. It was followed by NAHCO which added 4.79 per cent to close at N3.72 kobo per share, Medview Air which gained 4.40 per cent to close at N1.66 per share NEM that grew 4.26 per cent to close at N1.47 per share and AG Leventis that appreciated 3.51 per cent to close at 59 kobo per share.

The volume of shares traded in 4,238 declined to 238.4million units as against 336.34 million shares traded in the previous session. The stocks were valued at N3.4 billion as against Monday’s value of N30.02 billion exchanged in 3,778 deals.

Emerging as the toast of investors with an exchange of 75.8 million shares worth N541.3 million was FBN Holdings. It was followed by Diamond Bank that exchanged 33.8 million shares worth N37.6 million while Stanbic accounted for 14.4 million units valued at N614 million.

Adesola Afolabi