Profit-Taking in MTN Pushes NGX to Negative Close

Massive profit-taking in the shares of MTN Nigeria by investors has contributed significantly to the negative close of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Monday.

Being the second most capitalized listed company on the local bourse with N4.275 trillion market capitalization, the telecoms giant closed at N210 per share, falling by N4.9 or 2.28% from its previous price, thus weighing on the collective performance of the exchange during the session.

As a result, the All-Share Index (ASI) settled lower by 0.5% at 50,489.73 basis points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date (MtD) and Year-to-Date (YtD) returns settled at +0.2% and +18.2%, respectively.

Analysis of the day’s trading on the floor of the exchange revealed that total volume traded increased by 39.2% to 207.20 million units, valued at N2.12 billion, and exchanged in 4,234 deals.

NGX data showed that First Bank Nigeria Holdings (FBNH) was the most traded stock by volume and value at 74.63 million share units valued at N820.15 million, respectively.

Analysing by sectors, the Insurance index topped gainers’ chart with 1.4% increase and Consumer Goods index added 0.2% to follow suit, while on the contrary, the Banking index shed -1.1% as the only sector with daily negative return. However, the Oil & Gas and Industrial Goods indices closed flat

Meanwhile, MTN was not the only culprit responsible for the day’s loss, it only led the camp of the declining stocks.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative as 12 losing stocks emerged to outnumber nine gaining counterparts.

In terms of percentage price losses, RTBRISCOE and ELLAHLAKES topper the chart with -10.0% and -9.6% respectively.

On the flip side, HONYFLOUR (+5.7%) and CORNERST (+5.6%) recorded the most significant gains of the day.

Elsewhere, similar negative news emerged in the currency market where the local currency, naira, again took blow as it depreciated by 0.7% to trade at N431 against the dollar.