Equities investors lose N21.3bn as bear resurfaces at NGX

Bearish sentiments resurfaced in the local bourse on Thursday as investors took profits as the NGX All-Share Index (ASI) fell by 0.09 per cent to settle at 44,011.22 basis points.

At the Nigerian Exchange Limited, on Thursday, the market’s weak performance was primarily driven by selloffs in Tier-1 banks, Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Holding Company and Access Holdings, as their respective share prices dipped by 2.29 per cent, 1.55 per cent and 0.60 per cent.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to +0.4 per cent and +3.0 per cent, respectively.

Investors, therefore, lost N21.37 trillion from their overall equities investment as the market capitalisation closed at N23.97 trillion.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative as 20 stocks lost relative to 13 gainers. On the performance board, Guinness Nigeria and SCOA topped the losers’ list after their respective share prices dipped by 10.0 per cent, while Unilever Nigeria and Stanbic IBTC recorded the most significant gains of the day having appreciated in share value by 10.0 per cent and 9.1 per cent, respectively.

Sectoral performance was broadly negative, as the Banking, Oil & Gas, Consumer Goods and Industrial Goods indices printed losses having depreciated in share value by 1.0 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively; while the Insurance index was the sole gainer of the day after recording 0.2 per cent appreciation in value.

Analysis of market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 70.36 per cent. A total of 97.70 million shares valued at N847.88 million were exchanged in 2,980 deals.
Transcorp led the volume chart with 10.65m units traded while GTCO led the value chart in deals worth N134.00 million.

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