Equity market closes on bearish run, sheds N345bn

The nation’s equity market on Tuesday returned to bearish run, depreciating by N345 billion.

Market capitalisation of listed equities declined by 0.51 per cent to N66.942 trillion from N67.287 trillion reported the previous day.

The NGX All Share Index also depreciated by 550.88 basis points to 106904.25 points from 107455.13 points traded on Monday.

As a result, year to date return went down to 3.86 er cent as 44 companies closed in red against 17 advancers.

A review of the investment during the day showed that Uhomreit led gainers table, increasing by 9.94 per cent to close at N48.65 per unit, NEM Insurance followed with a gain of 8.78 per cent to close at N14.25 per unit, Ikeja Hotel gained 8.72 per cent to close at N11.85 per share, Conhall added 6.76 per cent to close at N3.93 per unit, Livestock Feeds up by 4.53 per cent to close at N7.83 per share.

Trading for the day showed that five companies depreciated by 10 per cent. Dangote Sugar, Deap Capital, Transnational Corporation of Nigeria went down by 10 per cent each to close at N36.00, N0.90 and N51.30 per unit respectively. Eterna Plc and Guinea Insurance also dipped by 10 per cent to close respectively at N37.80 per cent and N0.63 per share.

Volume of trades increased by 87.377 million, representing 28.36 per cent as investors traded 395.466 million shares valued at N8.763 billion in 13967 deals against 308.089 million shares worth N7.231 billion in 15214 deals. United Capital led market activities with 40.525 million shares valued at N732.775 million, EllahLakes followed with account of 26.160 million shares cost N78.920 million, Zenith Bank traded 25.654 million shares cost N1.227 billion, Universal insurance exchanged 22.000 million shares cost N13.847 million while Access Corps traded 18.182 million shares valued at N448.329 million.