Equities Shed N15 Billion to Commence Week

The Nigerian equity market commenced week in the red as the local bourse shed N15 billion on Monday, driven by a massive profit-taking spree in the shares of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated.

The -5.7 per cent loss recorded by the banking stock fueled 0.1% negative return seen in the All-Share Index (ASI) to close at 49,344.67 basis points.

Similarly, market capitalisation shed N15 billion to close the opening session at N26.615 trillion. Consequently, the Month-to-date loss increased to 2.0%, while the Year-to-Date gain moderated to +15.5%.

The total volume traded declined by 7.2% to 122.74 million units, valued at NGN1.30 billion, and exchanged in 3,915 deals.

MBENEFIT was the most traded stock by volume at 18.43 million units, while MTN Nigeria was the most traded stock by value at N206.42 million.

Analysing by sectors, the Banking index shed -0.7%, followed by insurance and oil and gas indices which lost -0.1%-0.1% respectively. While the Consumer Goods index emerged the only sector with positive performance (+0.1), the Industrial Goods index was flat.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.5x) as 19 tickers lost relative to nine gainers.

FTNCOCOA (-9.1%) and LASACO (-8.7%) recorded the most significant losses of the day, while COURTVILLE (+9.1%) and HONYFLOUR (+8.7%) topped the gainers’ list.