NGX Rings in the New Year with a Headline-Making N638 Billion LossNGX Rings in the New Year with a Headline-Making N638 Billion Loss

Nigerian Exchange Limited faced its first market capitalization decline of the New Year.
Despite the All-Share Index holding above 80,000 points, it experienced a notable 1.40% dip.
Access Holdings Plc and First Bank of Nigeria Holdings, both recently surpassing the N1 trillion milestone, witnessed a downturn.

Eko Hot Blog reports that the market capitalization of the Nigerian Exchange Limited depreciated for the first time in the New Year.

At the close of trading on Wednesday, the eight-day rally in the market stopped as the market cap dipped by N638bn to close at N44.885tn, barely a day after the market cap crossed the N45tn milestone.

Even though the benchmark index of the exchange, the All-Share Index remained above 80,000 points, it shed 1,167.46 points or 1.40 per cent to close at 82,024.38 on Wednesday.

Banking stocks were majorly impacted by the depreciation, most of which suffered a loss except for Jaiz Bank which defied the trend to appreciate by 5.40 per cent to N2.93 and Stanbic IBTC Holdings which closed flat.

In the meantime, the market capitalization of Access Holdings Plc and First Bank of Nigeria Holdings dropped below N1tn, a day after the lenders crossed the milestone. They closed the market with a capitalization of N989bn and N926bn, respectively.

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The downturn in the equity market comes a day after the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, questioned some banks’ Managing Directors over a fraud that was uncovered at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.

The major drivers of the day’s market were the stocks of indigenous conglomerate, Transnational Corporation Plc, AccessCorp, United Bank for Africa, Jaiz Bank and Zenith Bank.

Market Breadth which is the measure of investors’ sentiment was negative resulting in 13 gainers and 61 losers.

The gainers were led primarily by stocks of Cadbury Plc which gained 9.92 per cent to N19.95 per unit. On Tuesday, the consumer goods company revealed plans to seek shareholders’ approval to convert a N7.036bn loan from its parent company, Cadbury Schweppes Overseas Limited, to equity.

In an explanatory statement on the proposed debt-to-equity conversion filed with the NGX, the company revealed that between February 2021 and September 2023, Cadbury Schweppes Overseas, loaned $23m to Cadbury Nigeria to help settle outstanding third-party loans which the company had obtained to fund its raw material imports and other input costs.