Business
Investors Lose N108bn as Stock Market Sustains Downward Trend
The downward trend of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) which followed the announcement of the presidential election two weeks ago persisted yesterday with investors losing N108 billion.
Trading results showed that market capitalisation which represents investors’ worth on the Exchange declined by N108 billion to close at N11.797 trillion from N11.905 billion on Friday. Similarly, the stock market benchmark index, Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE All Share Index, ASI, fell by 0.90 percent amid sustained profit taking activities by investors at the close of trading to close at 31,636.66 points.
Consequently, Year-to- Date gain of the equities market fell to 0.66 percent. The market recorded 19 losers as against 14 gainers. The shares of Nestle Nigeria, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, ETI and WAPCO dominated the losers table to shed by 1.99 percent, 3.47 percent and 2.14 percent respectively, contracting the Consumer Goods, Banking and Industrial Sector Indices by 0.68 percent, 2.87 percent and 0.44 percent respectively.
In the same vein, the total volume of equities traded fell by 44.96 percent to 128.4 million shares; however, the total value of equities traded rose by 5.08 percent to N2.39 billion respectively.
Cadbury led the price gainers rising by 10 percent or N1.10 to close at N12.10, followed by Mutual Benefits Assurance which went up by 8.7 percent or 2 kobo to close at N0.25. NASCON garnered 8.5 percent or N1.70 to close at N21.70, followed by Union Dicon which rose by 3.45 percent or N0.01 to close at N0.30 and NPF Microfinance Bank which went up by 3.23 percent or 5 kobo to close at N1.60 per share.
Conversely, Cornerstone Insurance led the cream of losers dropping by 8.70 percent or 2 kobo to close at N0.21, followed by Sterling Bank Plc which depreciated by 8.51 percent or 20 kobo to close at N2.15. Abbey Plc declined 8.16 percent or 8 kobo to close at N0.90, followed by Japaul Oil which declined by 4.76 percent or one kobo to close at N0.20 while Wapic Insurance nosedived by 4.76 percent or 2 kobo to close at N0.40.
Meanwhile, analysts at Afrinvest Research said: “Similar to last week, we expect to see buying activities in the early part of the week as investors anticipate positive earnings results of stocks. However, due to the bearish investor sentiment, we expect the uptick in market performance to be short-lived. Thus, we maintain our bearish outlook over the near-term.”
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