Chinwendu Obienyi
Nigeria’s stock market continued to experience downturn with the All Share Index (ASI) recording a decline of 3.35 per cent to close yesterday’s trading at 23,572.75 points. This came with investors losing a total of N425.2 billion as market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed at N12.284 trillion from an initial value of N12.709 trillion, while the year-to-date (YTD) loss worsened to -12.2 per cent. Sell-offs recorded in large capitalised stocks such as Dangote Cement, Zenith Bank, Nestle and many more caused the drastic fall in the market’s performance.
Conversely, the Consumer (-4.7 per cent) and Industrial Goods (-3.4 per cent) indices led the laggards, following sell-offs in Nestle (-10.0 per cent) and Dangote Cement (-10.0 per cent). The Banking and Oil & Gas indices lost 2.7 and 0.7 per cent respectively, trailing price depreciation in Zenith Bank (-10.0 per cent) and Oando (-4.1 per cent). On the other hand, the Insurance index gained 2.2 per cent, driven by buying interest in Cornerstone (+8.9 per cent) while the AFR-ICT index closed flat.
Despite the panic and growing concern over COVID 19, activity level on the bourse surged as the volume and value of stocks traded rose by 134.0 and 319.4 per cent to 1.4 billion units and N17.6 billion respectively, exchanged in 7,150 deals. Investor’ sentiment strengthened a bit with 20 stocks depreciating as against 18 others that dropped in value. Dangote Cement topped the losers’ chart with 10 per cent decline to close at N153 per share with Nestle following with 10 per cent to close at N915.30, as Sterling Bank fell 9.93 per cent to close at N1.27, Conoil dropped 9.88 per cent to close at N14.60 while UCAP decreased by 9.83 per cent to close at N2.11.
Meanwhile, Chams and Courtville both shared top spot on the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at 0.22 kobo per share. FCMB trailed with 9.93 per cent to close at N1.66, Unilever rose by 9.91 per cent to close at N11.65 while UBA increased by 9.73 per cent to close at N6.20.