Equity Investors Lose N326bn, NGX Sectoral Indexes Plunge
Equity investors that traded highs and lows in the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) lost more than N326 billion as sectoral indexes plunged due to profit-taking activities.
Drivers of today’s loss include GTCO (-3.2%), WAPCO (-4.0%), DANGSUGAR (-10.0%) and ACCESSCORP (-5.0%) and Wema Bank (8.27%.
The market reacted negatively to the benchmark interest rate cut, which is expected to strain banking earnings and possibly drag down the yield on naira assets in the fixed income market.
On Tuesday’s trading session, the local bourse experienced continued downward pressure on with the All-Share Index dropping 0.40% to settle at 140,929.60 points.
This decline reduced the year-to-date gains to 36.92% and erased N326.19 billion from the total market value, bringing it down to N89.20 trillion.
Trading patterns showed mixed signals. Total volume of shares traded surged 55.37% to 759.08 million units, and the value of transactions jumped 87.53% to N25.73 billion. The actual number of deals decreased by 17.34% to 23,657 transactions, which suggests fewer but larger trades dominated the session.
CONHALLPLC topped the volume chart with 169.63 million units, followed by ZENITHBANK with 104.43 million, FIRSTHOLDCO with 100.99 million, FIDELITYBK with 52.53 million, and GTCO with 45.01 million.
Value drivers in the stock market include ZENITHBANK (N6.91 billion), GTCO (N4.11 billion), FIRSTHOLDCO (N3.15 billion), MTNN (N1.60 billion), and PRESCO (N1.23 billion).
Market sentiment remained weak, demonstrated by more stocks falling than rising – 35 declined while only 16 advanced, creating a negative market breadth of 0.5x.
Companies in the gainer chart include THOMASWY (9.80%), NSLTECH (9.59%), and RTBRISCOE (9.50%), while losses were on DANGSUGAR (10%), WEMABANK (8.27%), and NSLTECH (6.25%).
All major sectors closed in negative territory, according to data from the Nigerian bourse. Oil & Gas suffered the steepest decline at (-1.80%), followed by Banking (-1.04%), Commodity (-0.90%), Insurance (-0.79%), Industrial (-0.60%), and Consumer Goods (-0.11%). Expert advises start-ups to tap into energy, food deficits
