Despite uptick in activity, equities market records third consecutive loss

Equities trading extended its loss for the third consecutive day, as investors sold off on the stocks of Nigerian Breweries, Dangote Sugar and tier-1 banking stocks.

Consequently, the benchmark index declined by 0.4 per cent to 39,364.67 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to -1.1 per cent and -2.3 per cent, respectively.

Investors lost N82.35 billion as the market capitalisation closed at N20.60 trillion as against an opening of N20.68 trillion.

Activity at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) was uptick despite overall negative performance. Basically, the total volume of trades, on Thursday, increased by 101.8 per cent to 493.17 million units, valued at N4.72 billion, and exchanged in 5,486 deals.

Universal Insurance was the most traded stock by volume at 83.26 million units, while Presco was the most traded stock by value at N1.05 billion.

Performance across sectors was broadly negative as all sectors index recorded declines save for the Industrial Goods that appreciated by 0.2 per cent. The Insurance index was the highest loser by four per cent, followed by the Banking, Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices that recorded 1.5 per cent, 1.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent decline.

Market sentiment remained negative, as 46 stocks declined, relative to 12 gainers.

Fidson Pharmaceutical and NN Flour Mills recorded the largest losses of the day having depreciated by ten per cent respectively, while University Prints Limited topped the gainers’ list with 9.9 per cent and 9.1 per cent respective growth in share value.

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