Equity market sheds N132bn

Omeiza Bilal

Domestic equity market on Tuesday sustained downward trend at the close of trading on Tuesday shedding N132 billion as low performance in the banking stocks and other companies such as United Bank for Africa, Zenith, Sterling Bank, Wema Bank FBNHoldings, Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Dangote Sugar impacted negatively on the market

Market capitalisation of listed equities declined by 0.24 per cent to N55.132 trillion from N55.264 trillion reported the previous day.

The NGX All Share Index also depreciated by 234.76 basis points to 97473.98 points from 97708.74 recorded on Monday.

With the market low performance year to date return went down to 30.36 per cent as NGX printed 22 gainers against 20 losers.

An analysis of the Investment showed that Learn Africa, Tantalizer led gainers table with 10 per cent to close at N3.63 per unit and N0.55 per share respectively, Mcnichols followed with a gain of 9.89 per cent to close at N1.00, Regal Insurance added 9.38 per cent to close at N0.35 per unit, Cutix gained 8.33 per cent to close at N3.25 per share.

On the contrary, Dangote Sugar, PZ Cusson and TIP topped losers chart, dropping by 10 per cent to close respectively at N40.50, N22.50 and 2.22 per share. NEM Insurance trailed with a loss of 9.66 per cent to close at N9.35 per unit, while Caverton Business Solutions down by 9.55 per cent to close at N1.42 per unit.

Volume of activities declined by 132.504 million, representing a drop of 30.17 per cent as investors traded 306.596 million shares valued at N5.814 billion in 7951 deals against 439.100 million shares worth N11.376 billion in 8607 deals.

Transactions in the shares of Access Holdings Company AccessCorp led market activities during the day, exchanging 33.234 million shares valued at N575.591 million, GTCO Plc followed with account of 32.253 million shares worth N1.361 billion, Nigeria Breweries traded 27.463 million shares cost N631.760 million, United Bank for Africa exchanged 22.517 million shares valued at N519.495 million while Royalex traded 19.458 million shares cost N10.176 million.