Connect with us

Business

NSE LIVE! Equities slip further with N45b loss

Published

on

NSE LIVE! Equities’ rally widens with N44b gain

Nigerian equities continued on the downtrend on Wednesday, running a second consecutive trading session on a mix of profit-taking transactions and portfolio realignments. The downtrend on Wednesday was exacerbated by losses suffered by leading stocks in the breweries and banking sectors.

The All Share Index (ASI)- the value-based common-share index that tracks prices of all quoted equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), dipped by 0.52 per cent to close at 25,145.28 points as against its opening index of 25,277.29 points.

Aggregate market value of all quoted companies dropped by N45 billion from N8.695 trillion to close at N8.650 trillion. Average year-to-date return depreciated to -12.21 per cent.

With 23 losers to 15 gainers, the decline still indicated underlying selling pressure.  Nigerian Breweries led the losers with a loss of N4.83 to close at N107. Guinness Nigeria followed with a loss of N3.18 to close at N105.75. PZ Cussons Nigeria lost N1.19 to close at N22.71. Zenith Bank dropped by 35 kobo to close at N10.96 while United Bank for Africa slipped by 33 kobo to close at N3.23.

Analysts at Cowry Asset Management Limited said the downtrend was due to lacklustre year-end results by companies.

“Current market performance continues to be dictated by earnings releases and corporate actions filtering into the system; we expect the market to trade sideways in the short term as earnings season reaches a climax. We reiterate value investing as the optimal strategy to outperform against the volatile macro backdrop,” Afrinvest Securities, a dealer on the NSE, stated.

Total turnover stood at 504.20 million shares worth N2.14 billion in 3,374 deals. The three most active stocks were Livestock Feed, with 100.33 million shares; Sterling Bank, 70.59 million shares and United Capital, which recorded a turnover of 65.69 million shares. The most active sectors were financial services, with 377.66 million shares; agriculture, 100.37 million shares and consumer goods, which recorded a turnover of 9.81 million shares.

On the positive side, Seplat Petroleum Development Company led the contrarian stocks with a gain of N10 to close at N310. Lafarge Africa and Dangote Cement rallied N2 each to close at N79 and N164.05. Seven-Up Bottling Company rose by N1.41 to close at N153 while Flour Mills of Nigeria added 86 kobo to close at N19.40 per share.

 

 

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now