Equities investors lose N259.2bn on gloomy trades

Negative sentiments associated to the spread of coronavirus in the country persists with the local equities market closing southward, on Monday, as All Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) depreciated by 2.24 per cent to close at 21,700.98 points as against 0.54 per cent appreciation recorded at the close trading. Its Year-to-Date (YTD) returns currently stands at -19.15%.

Equities investors lost N259.2 billion as the market capitalisation dipped by 2.24 per cent to record a close mark of N11.309 trillion, thus the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to -17.2 per cent and -19.2 per cent, respectively.

Market breadth also closed negative as nine gainers were recorded against 25 losers, an unimproved performance when compared with previous outlook.

Neimeth Pharmaceutical led the gainers’ chart having gained N0.04 Kobo or ten per cent in value to close at 44 Kobo per stock, May and Baker followed with 8.94 per cent appreciation in its share value to close at N195 Kobo.

Custodian Insurance also gained 45 Kobo, having appreciated by 8.65 per cent to close at N5.65 Kobo at by the end of the day trading; Flour Mills of Nigeria’s share value appreciated by 7.77 per cent to close at N20.80 Kobo; while CAP added N1.50 kobo or 7.69 per cent to close at N21.

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On the other hand, Dangote Sugar, Nigerian Breweries, Stanbic IBTC, United Bank for Africa and Wema Bank declined by ten per cent to close at N9, N27, N23.85, N4.50 and 45 Kobo per shares, respectively.

Market turnover closes negative as volume moved down by -22.37 per cent as against -27.83 per cent downtick recorded on Friday, to 464.36 million units, valued at NGN3.87 billion and exchanged in 5,883 deals. The total volume of trades increased by 22.4 per cent Zenith Bank was the most traded stock by volume and value at 120.46 million units and NGN1.30 billion, respectively. Guaranty Trust Bank and FBN Holdings joined Zenith Bank as the most active to boost market turnover, while Zenith Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank topped market value list.

All sector indices closed negative with the Banking index incurring the biggest loss with 9.0 per cent, followed by the Consumer Goods (-3.67%), Insurance (-1.5%), Oil and Gas (-0.8%), and Industrial Goods (-0.8%) indices, at 3.67, 1.5, 0.8 and 0.8 percentile loss, respectively.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE