Business

Equities investors lose N421.1bn as bears persists at NGX

At the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Monday, equities trading sustained a losing streak as the All-Share Index shed 1.49 per cent to close at 51,120.94 basis points.

The market’s weak performance was driven by selloffs in telco heavyweight MTN Nigeria Communication alongside Zenith Bank and First Bank of Nigeria Holdings as the share prices of these companies depreciated by 6.67 per cent, 0.45 per cent and 1.44 per cent, respectively.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns printed -5.7 per cent and -0.3 percent, respectively.

Equities investors therefore cumulatively lost N421.07 billion as the market capitalisation settled at N27.85 trillion at the end of the day’s trading activities.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative, as 18 tickers lost relative to 16 gainers. INTENEGINS and MTN Nigeria Communications topped the loser’s list as their respective share prices dipped by 7.0 per cent and 6.7 per cent, while Ikeja Hotel and Transnational Corporation recorded the highest gains of the day having appreciated in share value by 9.5 per cent, respectively.

Performance across sub-indices was mixed, with the NGX Banking and NGX Insurance Indexes declining by 5.53 per cent and 0.13 per cent, respectively, while the NGX Oil/Gas and NGX Industrial indexes remained flat. However, NGX Consumer Goods recorded a slight gain of 0.07 per cent.

Performance as measured by activities was unimpressive as analysis of market activities at the local bourse showed that trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 33.64 per cent.

A total of 226.59 million shares valued at N1.57 billion were exchanged in 4,373 deals. Transnational Corporation led the volume chart with 63.44 million units traded, while Zenith Bank led the value chart in deals worth N292.63 million.

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