Follow Us on Google
Chinwendu Obienyi
Amidst renewed bearish sentiment in equities transactions yesterday, investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) lost about N48 billion as its market capitalisation closed at N12.821 trillion.
The downturn according to brokers was attributed to price losses in the shares of Seplat, Dangote Cement, Oando and GT Bank.
This adversely impacted the All Share Index (ASI) which fell by 0.44 per cent to close at 26,357.61 points while year-to-date (YTD) return worsened to -16 per cent, dragging down the NSE Consumer Goods, NSE Oil & Gas and NSE Industrial sectored gauges lower by 0.40, 1.43 and 0.93 per cent respectively.
However, total volume of equities traded rose by 61.38 per cent to 610.58 million units while total value of transactions increased 55.31 per cent to N2.16 billion in 5,031 deals.
Reacting to the development, traders said market sentiment remains weak in the stock market, adding that their bearish outlook in the absence of catalysts might spur investors’ appetite for equities.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) as 13 stocks gained against 16 decliners. The top gainers were Ikeja Hotel (+9.1 per cent), AG Leventis (+7.1 per cent) and Jaiz Bank (+7.1 per cent) while Total (-9.3 per cent), PZ (-9.9 per cent) and Chip Plc (-7.1 per cent) were the top losers.
The most active stocks by volume were Zenith Bank (336.6 million units), Access Bank (73.8 million units) and Nigerian Breweries (63.8 million units) while Zenith Bank (N5.8 billion), Nigerian Breweries (N3 billion) and Access Bank (N714.2 million) led by value.
