Lingering weak sentiment continued to prowl on equities investments, leading to a fresh loss of N45 billion for investors on Tuesday.
This was particularly driven by selloffs in banking names and at the close of the session, the All-Share Index (ASI) declined by 0.4 per cent to 24,114.59 basis points. Thus, Month-to-Date (MtD) and Year-to-Date (YtD) losses increased to -1.5 per cent and -10.2 per cent, respectively.
Analysing by sectors, the Consumer Goods (+0.4 per cent), Industrial Goods (+0.3 per cent) and Insurance (+0.1 per cent) indices posted gains, while the Banking (-2.8 per cent) and Oil & Gas (-0.4 per cent) indices recorded declines to overshadow the gains in other indices.
The downtrend also reflected on market turnover with traded volume falling by 10 per cent to 208.20 million units, valued at NGN1.06 billion and exchanged in 4,174 deals.
STERLNBANK was the most traded stock by volume at 78.92 million units while GUARANTY was the most traded stock by value at NGN222.92 million.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was negative, as 15 stocks declined, relative to 8 gainers and 16 others that closed the day on unchanged prices.
According to the day’s trading statistics, Unilever led other gainers with N1.2 appreciation price to close at N13.65 per share, followed by BUACEMENT that gained N0.25 to close at N41.45 per share.
Similarly, Jaiz Bank and Transcorp added N0,02 each to close at N0.56 and N0.54 per share respectively while NEM trailed with N0.01 gain to close at N2.06 per share.
On the flip side, two Tier-1 banks, GUARANTY and Zenith Bank Plc, shed N0.70 and N0.60 to close at N21.3 and N15.60 per share respectively to lead other declining stocks.
Other losers that emerged from the day’s activities are Access Bank and AfriPrud, losing N0.20 and N0.18 to close at N6.10 and N4.07 per share respectively.
