Persistent downtrend of the Nigerian stock market bled over on mid-week trading session on Wednesday as investors in the market again lost N50.84 billion.
Activities in the domestic equities market dipped further into the bear territory driven principally by sell-offs in the shares of SEPLAT that led to -8.3% price decline for the security.
Thus, the All-Share Index (ASI) that tracks aggregate price movements in the market closed 0.2% lower to 43,745.73 basis points. Consequently, Year-to-Date (YtD) return moderated to +2.4%.
However, the bears reigned amid an improved turnover with the total volume traded rising by 7.4% to 172.87 million units, valued at N4.01 billion, and exchanged in 4,009 deals.
Trade data by the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) showed that Access Corporation was the most traded stock by volume at 24.68 million units, while SEPLAT was the most traded stock by value at N2.53 billion.
Sectoral performance was mixed as the Oil & Gas (-4.3%), Consumer Goods (-1.6%), and Insurance (-0.4%) indices closed lower, while the Industrial Goods (+1.3%) and Banking (+0.1%) indices gained.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative following the emergence of 19 losing stocks relative to 13 gaining counterparts.
Julius Berger shed -9.5% as the highest percentage price loss for the day, followed by SEPLAT with -8.3%, while NAHCO and REGLINS topped gainers’ chart with +9.4% and+4.4% respectively.
