Equities Sink Deeper as Investors Lose Fresh N418BN

Nigeria’s domestic bourse resume trading on Monday only to tilt towards bears’ camp as sell-offs on the floor of the exchange, forcing share prices to close lower with MTN Nigeria among major decliners.

The development triggered a 1.5% decline in the benchmark index that tracks share price movement in the market. Specifically, the All-Share Index shed 766.56 points to close lower at 51.127.38 basis points.

In monetary terms, the development amounted to a net loss of N418 billion for investors to see the valuation of equity investments at the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) close in the red at N27.850 trillion from N28.268 trillion it opened the day.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns printed -5.7% and -0.3%, respectively.

On sectoral performance, the Banking (-5.5%) and Insurance (-0.1%) indices declined, while the Oil & Gas and Industrial Goods indices closed flat. The Consumer Goods (+0.1%) index was the sole gainer of the day.

Trading statistics obtained by BUSINESS METRICS at the close of the session also showed that investors pulled back in terms of activity levels, as volume and value traded shrank by 58.19% and 33.64% respectively.

Investors traded 226.6 million shares valued at N1.568 billion in 4,373 deals compared to 541.98 million shares worth N2.363 billion that exchanged hands in 3,766 transactions the previous session.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative as 18 tickers lost relative to 16 gainers. INTENEGINS and MTN Nigeria topped losers’ chart as their prices declined by -7% and -6.7% respectively while IKEJAHOTEL (+9.5%) and TRANSCORP (+9.5%) recorded the highest gains of the day.

GAINERS

DECLINERS