Investors lose N9.4bn in 24 hours as NSE opens week negative

Trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange opened the week bearish as the all-share index lost seven basis points (0.07 percent) due to sell-offs in some banking stocks to close at 24,269.58 points as against 24,287.66 points on Friday.

Consequently, investors lost N9.4 billion as market capitalisation declined to N12.660 trillion in contrast with the opening N12.669 trillion.

Year-to date (YTD) and month-to-date (MTD) losses worsened to -9.6 percent and -0.9 percent respectively.

Activity level improved as volume traded increased by 90.1 percent to 305.1 million shares, while value traded also increased to 42.6 percent at N2.1 billion in 3,258 deals.

This was in contrast with 160.50 million shares worth N1.47 billion traded in 2,997 deals on Friday.

The most active stocks by volume were Sovereign Trust Insurance (75.56 million units); United Bank for Africa (70.7 million units); and Guaranty Trust Bank (36.97 million units).

In terms of the value traded, Guaranty Trust Bank and UBA took the lead with N795.1 million and N444.9 million respectively.

Performance across NSE top five sectors was mixed as two of five indices closed negative, while the consumer goods index closed flat.

The banking and industrial indices recorded the worst performance owing to sell-pressures in Zenith Bank (-0.6 percent), Access Bank (-1.0 percent) and Cutix Plc (-0.2 percent).

Gains in Ardova Plc (7.2 percent) and Linkage Assurance Plc (9.4 percent) pushed the oil&gas and insurance indices higher by 0.3 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.