Equities investors lose N48.3bn as bears persists at NGX

May 3, 2023

The Nigerian equities market sustained its negative sentiments on Wednesday as the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) closed lower at 52,207.77 basis points, declining by 0.2 per cent.

Bearish proceedings in the market were due to sell-offs on medium and heavy-weight stocks as investors dumped part of their holdings in Transnational Corporation, Union Bank of Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries, MTN Nigeria Communication and Dangote Sugar; hence, their respective share prices declined by 9.49 per cent, 7.79 per cent, 6.14 per cent, 0.65 per cent, and 0.26 per cent, respectively.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns printed -0.4 per cent and +1.9 per cent, respectively.

Equities investors, therefore, lost N48.30 billion from their overall investment as the market capitalisation settled at N28.43 trillion.

However, as measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive as 22 tickers gained relative to 18 losers. On the performance board, Ardova Plc and Academy Press topped the gainers’ list having appreciated in share values by 9.3 per cent and 8.9 per cent, respectively; while Transnational Corporation and INTENEGINS recorded the highest losses of the day as the companies decreased in share prices by 9.5 per cent and 8.9 per cent, respectively.

Also, gains were broad-based across sub-sector gauges checked as all the sub-indices tracked closed in the green except for the NGX Consumer Goods index, which declined by 0.49 per cent.

The NGX Banking, NGX Insurance, NGX Oil/Gas, and NGX Industrial indices rose by 0.17 per cent, 0.51 per cent, 0.78 per cent, and 0.07 per cent, respectively.

However, analysis of market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 2.37 per cent.

A total of 670.08 million shares valued at N5.03 billion were exchanged in 6,254 deals. Transnational Corporation led the volume chart with 276.53 million units traded while Access Holdings led the value chart in deals worth N1.81 billion..

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