Equities market posts -2.3% on Dangote Cement, GTBank, Access Bank loss

Price depreciation in heavyweight stocks triggered the day’s huge loss on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday as Dangote Cement, the largest listed stock on the NSE posted a whopping share price depreciation of 8.6 per cent.

Other heavyweights such as Guaranty Trust Bank that dropped 2.2 per cent and Access bank that fell 5.9 per cent similarly impacted the day’s losses.

For the first time since May 2017, Nigeria’s equities market All-Share Index (ASI) closed below the benchmark 30,000 points to settle at 29,336.80 points.

This is as investors intensified sell offs amidst heightened tensions of political uncertainty analysts at Afrinvest reiterated Wednesday.

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The ASI plunged 2.3 per cent worsening year to date returns to -6.7 per cent while market capitalisation decreased by N260.8 billion to N10.9 trillion.

An analysis of activity showed levels of trade ended mixed as volume traded increased 8.6 per cent to 234.9 million units while value traded fell 15.9 per cent lower to N2.2 billion.

The top traded stocks by volume were Diamond Bank with 54.7m units, Guaranty Trust Bank with 27.7m units and Zenith Bank with 25.8m units.

Top traded stocks by value were Guaranty Trust Bank which traded shares worth N865.7m. It was followed by Zenith Bank’s N526.3m worth of traded shares and FBN Holdings’ N152.1m worth of shares traded.

Performance across sector was mixed as 3 of 5 major indices closed in the red. The industrial goods index experienced a reversal, down 4.4 per cent following sell-offs in Dangote Cement. The insurance and banking indices were also lower by 3.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively, following losses in Custodian and Allied Insurance, NEM Insurance, Guaranty Trust Bank and Access Bank.

Conversely, the consumer goods and oil & gas indices ticked up 0.7 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively, from gains in Flourmills, Cadbury, Oando and Mobil.