Chinwendu Obienyi
Following sell-offs recorded by Industrial goods stocks, trading at the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened the week on a negative note as the All Share Index (ASI) dropped by 0.12 per cent to close at 40,763.93 points.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to -1.78 and 6.59 per cent respectively even as market capitalization decreased by N19 billion to close at N14.724 trillion from N14.743 billion recorded on Friday.
The Industrial Goods (-2.72 per cent) index posted the largest loss, owing to selloffs of FLOURMILL (-4.69 per cent), WAPCO (-1.91 per cent), and DANGCEM (-0.60 per cent).
The Banking index (-0.58 per cent) and Insurance (-0.45 per cent) indices also recorded negative returns, as investors liquidated holdings in GUARANTY (-2.12 per cent) and CONTINSURE (-5.14 per cent) respectively. Meanwhile, interests in GLAXOSMITH (+5.61 per cent) and Forte Oil (+4.94 per cent) stocks led to gains in the Consumer Goods (+0.90 per cent) and Oil & Gas (+0.56 per cent) indices respectively.
Analysts at Cordros Capital Limited said, “Despite continued selloffs, we reiterate our positive outlook for the equities market, as relatively lower share prices, as well as still-positive macroeconomic fundamentals, suggests legroom for gains still exist”
Market breadth remained negative, with 23 losers and 19 gainers. Continsure topped the losers’ chart with 5.14 per cent to close at N1.66 per share, Unity Bank was next with a loss of 4.72 per cent to close at N1.21, Flourmills decreased by 4.69 per cent to close at N33.55 while Jaiz Bank dropped 4.65 per cent to close at 0.82 kobo per share.
On the flipside, LearnAfrica topped the gainers’ chart with a gain of 9.17 per cent to close at N1.31 per share. Transcorp followed with 7.98 per cent to close at N1.76, Glaxosmithkline increased by 5.61 per cent to close at N32, NEM garnered 4.96 per cent to close at N2.75 while Forte Oil added 4.94 per cent to close at N39.30 per share.
At the close of trading, the turnover volume of stocks traded stood at 530.22 million shares worth N7.77 billion in 4,567 deals in comparison with 242.29 million shares valued at N3.02 billion in 5,746 deals recorded in the previous trading session.