Equity Market Pulls Back as Investors Sustain Selling Rallies
Nigerian equity market pulls back by more than N51 billion on Thursday as investors’ book additional profit, with selloff hitting the big names in the local bourse. Sustaining the previous day’s negative sentiment, the Nigerian Exchange declines by 0.22 per cent, pulling back a year to date returns following the previous rally experienced.
Data from the local bourse shows that the decline was driven by profit-taking in MTNN and other bellwether stocks. The telecom giants had seen a stronger rally amidst a plan to issue a public offer to Nigerians.
Consequently, The Nigerian Exchange All-Share Index dipped 98.24 basis points, representing a decline of 0.22 per cent to close at 43,609.06 points today. As expected from the bearish outing, market capitalisation lost ₦51.27 billion of its opening value, representing a decrease of 0.22 per cent to close at ₦22.76 trillion.
Again, market data shows that total volume and value traded dipped by 40.41 per cent and 61.97 per cent, respectively, as against the previous session. A total of 161.31 million units valued at ₦2.14 billion were transacted in 3,574 deals, NGX data shows.
Today, FBNH outperformed the traded stocks in terms of volume, accounting for 17.45 per cent of the total volume of trades, followed by TRANSCORP (14.57%), ZENITH BANK (7.76%), ACCESS (5.76%), and STERLNBANK (5.14%) to complete the top five on the volume chart.
MTNN sustained its top spot position as the most traded stock in value terms, with 18.94 per cent of the total value of trades on the exchange. UNITY BANK topped the advancers’ list as its share prices rose by 7.27 per cent, trailed by WAPCO (2.62%), JAPAULGOLD (2.33%), UACN (2.33%), AFRIPRUD (0.79%), FBNH (0.44%), and six (6) others.
Conversely, 19 stocks declined in price led by CORNERST with price depreciation of 8.77 percent to close at ₦0.52, as UBA (-2.40%), ETI (-2.31%), NGXGROUP (-2.16%), UCAP (-1.02%), GTCO (-0.90%), ACCESS (-0.78%), MTNN (-0.50%) and ZENITHBANK (-0.41%) also dipped in price.
The bearish mood seen in the trading pattern and activities keep the market breadth negative, recording 12 gainers and 19 losers. Similarly, the sector performance was bearish as three of the five major sectors closed negatively, led by Banking (-0.95%), Insurance (-0.93%) and Industrial Goods (-0.10%).
However, the Consumer Goods that gained 0.02%, as the Oil & Gas sector remain unchanged. #Equity Market Pulls Back as Investors Sustain Selling Rallies
Read Also: NGX Lost N51 Billion as Investors Unload Blocks of Shares
