Chinwendu Obienyi
Trading activities opened the week on a negative note, extending losses to the third consecutive trading session, as sell pressures in Union Bank of Nigeria (UBN), Zenith Bank and Wema Bank dragged the All Share Index (ASI) down by 0.06 per cent to settle at 31,125.39 points.
Similarly, market capitalisation shed N7 billion to close at N11.607 trillion while Year-to-Date (YtD) return worsened to -1.0 per cent. Activity level weakened as volume and value traded fell -2.0 and -42.2 per cent to 205.72 million units and N1.92 billion respectively, exchanged in 3,281 deals.
Traders say that despite the bearish performance recorded yesterday, there was mild bargain hunting on some counters. Hence, they maintain their expectation for a positive close tomorrow, driven by investor bargain hunting in fundamentally sound stocks.
Market breadth remained negative as 20 stocks depreciated in value while 11 others appreciated. Ikeja Hotel topped the losers’ chart with 9.66 per cent to close at N1.87 per share, Cutix Plc was next with a decline of 8.89 per cent to close at N2.05, Sovereign Insurance fell by 8 per cent to close at 0.23 kobo, Wema Bank lost 7.79 per cent to close at 0.71 kobo while the shares of Linkage Assurance declined by 6.78 per cent to close at 0.55 kobo.
On the flipside, Dangote Flour topped the gainers’ chart with 7.35 per cent to close at N10.95 per share. Union Diagnostics followed with 7.14 per cent to close at 0.30 kobo, McNichols increased by 5.26 per cent to close at 0.60 kobo, Caverton rose by 3.69 per cent to close at N2.25 while UCAP garnered 1.79 per cent to close at N2.85.
Access Bank drove volume of shares up with the sale of 56.01 million shares valued at N328.39 million. Zenith Bank traded 27.57 million shares worth N603.65 million while UBA transacted 22.61 million shares worth N170.69 million.