Equities investors lose N60bn to bearish trade

EQUITIES trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) begins the week on a red zone with the All Share Index closing at 36,411.73 basis points, having shed 13bps.

Similarly, market capitalisation finished lower at N12.662 trillion on Monday, having depreciated by N60.4 billion.

The market breadth remained in the bears’ camp with 24 symbols in red against 15 gainers.

Volume of trades, however, pitched up as it stands at 254 million shares in contrast to 107 million shares from the previous trading session on Friday,  while value recorded N2.7 billion as against N1.9 billion, both representing trade volume and trade value gains of 137.96 per cent and 43.35 per cent respectively.

Transactions in the shares of Access Bank, First Bank of Nigeria Holdings, Transnational Corporation, Fidelity Bank and Zenith Bank topped the activity chart as most traded equities as measured by volume.

Also on the trade value-based chart, Access Bank, Zenith Bank, Dangote Cement, WAPCO and FBN Holdings takes the lead.

All sector indices closed in the red zone with the exception of ASEM and Oil & Gas sectors remaining unchanged from the previous trading session.

Experts continued to advise that investors should keep hands on sectoral stocks that are sensitive to inflation rate changes.

“Given the progressive reduction of inflation rates over the past few months, we advice investors to keep an eye on inflation-sensitive stocks as some indices’ performances like the banking, consumer goods indices may be altered with further inflation drops while others may remain neutral to unanticipated inflation rate fluctuations,” APT Securities researches advised.