Chinwendu Obienyi
Investors trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) lost a total of N329.4 billion as heavy profit taking sentiment dominated transactions on Monday.
Amid fears of persistent decline in global oil prices, the All-Share index (ASI) fell by 2.41 per cent closing at 25,647.54 points due to sell pressures in the shares of GT Bank, Zenith and Stanbic IBTC.
Consequently, the market capitalisation fell by N329.4 billion to close at N13.365 trillion, while the YTD loss worsened to -4.5 per cent. Furthermore, activity level dipped as volume and value traded declined 48.6 and 57.3 per cent to 185.6m units and N1.8 billion, exchanged in 2,690 deals.
Performance across sectors was bearish save for the Industrial Goods and AFR-ICT indices which closed flat. The Banking (-9.0 per cent) index lost the most, following price depreciation in GT Bank (-10.0 per cent) and Zenith Bank (-10.0 per cent).
Similarly, the Consumer Goods and Insurance indices were down 2.5 and 2.4 per cent respectively, on the back of sell-offs in Unilever (-10.0 per cent) and Cornerstone (-10.0 per cent). Lastly, the Oil & Gas a indices closed lower at -1.4 per cent due to price decline in Oando (-10.0 per cent).
Investors’ sentiment was poor as 38 bellwethers shed gains while 1 appreciated. Stanbic (-10.0 per cent), UCAP (-10.0 per cent) and NAHCO (-10.0 per cent) led the laggards while Chip Plc (+7.1 per cent) was the lone gainer.
Reacting to the development, Analysts at Afrinvest said, “with the widespread of COVID-19 inducing a four-year low in global crude oil prices, we believe the dark clouds are gathering. As such, we expect investors to remain risk-averse towards the equities market in the near term, although there is headroom for bargain hunting activities due to cheap valuation of stocks and the local bourse relative to peers”.