The local stock market began the trading week in the negative zone, with the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) falling by 0.31 percent to 52,348.82 basis points, driven down by sell-offs in banking shares.
Notably, investors sold off part of their holdings in bellwethers like United Bank for Africa, Access Corporation, Zenith Bank, Wapco, Guaranty Trust Holding Company and Nigerian Breweries as a result their share prices depreciated by 4.19 percent, 3.76 percent, 3.72 percent, 3.56 percent, 1.63 percent and 1.17 percent, respectively.
Hence, the year-to-date gain of the NGX ASI lowered to 2.14 per cent even as the exchange recorded a higher number of losers than gainers.
Equities investors, therefore, lost N89.14 billion as market capitalisation settled lower at N28.51 trillion by the end of trading activities on Monday.
Market breadth closed negative with declining issues outnumbering advancing ones. On the performance board, Livestock 18 others on the laggard’s table having depreciated in share value by 7.69 percent while Presco topped 13 others on the gainer’s log after its share price appreciated by 9.67 percent.
Sectorial performance was weak as three of the five indices tracked closed in red. The NGX Consumer Goods index, in particular, declined by 0.08 per cent.
Similarly, the NGX Banking, and the NGX Industrial Indices fell by 3.39 percent, and 0.18 percent, respectively. On the flip side, the NGX Insurance index and the NGX Oil/Gas Index rose by 0.39 per cent and 0.09 percent.
In the broader market, NGX Premium and NGX-30 lost 0.58 percent and 0.30 percent, respectively.
Analysis of market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session with the value of transactions up by 27.34 percent.
A total of 221.85 million shares valued at N3.25 billion were exchanged in 5,219 deals. United Bank for Africa led the volume chart with 22.93 million units traded while Guaranty Trust Holding Company led the value chart in deals worth N482.50 million.
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