Indices sustain sliding profile, depreciates further by N20 billion

The news from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that the Nigerian economy has finally crawled out of recession after five consecutive quarters of negative growth could not buoy investments in the equities market, as the bears retained their strong hold with a galore of losses.

Thus, price losses outweigh gains on equities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday, as more highly capitalised stocks joined the league of losers’ resulting to a further slide in market capitalisation by N20billion.

Specifically, at the close of trading yesterday, market capitalisation of listed equities fell by 0.16 per cent to N12.217trillion from N12.237trillion traded last week Thursday. Also the NSE All Share Index depreciated by 58.17 basis points to 35446.45 points from 35504.62 recorded previously.

Investors for the day exchanged 143.592 million shares worth N3. 280billion in 2499 deals against 266.505 million shares cost N4.036billion traded the previous day in 2263 deals.

On the price movement chart, Nestle Nigeria Plc topped the losers chart during the day, dropping N20.00 to close at N1200.00, and Total Nigeria Plc trailed with a loss of N12.00 to close at N233.00. 7UP Bottling Company fell by N2.00 to close at N90.00, Unilever Nigeria Plc went down by N0.58 kobo to close at N38.71 kobo, and Cadbury Nigeria Plc declined by N0.57 kobo to close at N10.90 kobo.

Similarly, UACN dropped 0.38 kobo to close at N14.60 per share, Dangote Sugar Refinery shed 0.31 kobo to close at N13.19 per share, Oando lost 0.21 kobo to close at N6.60 per share, Fidson depreciated by 0.16 kobo to close at N3.18 per share, while Nigerian Aviation Handling Company lost 0.13 kobo to close at N3.10 per share.On the contrary, Guinness Nigeria Plc led the gainers table, appreciating by N3.77 kobo to close at N79.27 kobo.

Mobil Oil followed with a gain of N1.89 kobo to close at N167.00, Conoil Plc appreciated by N1.30 kobo to close at N29.00, Zenith International Bank increased by N0.86 kobo to close at N23.86 kobo, while Stanbic IBTC grew by N0.20 kobo to close at N38.47 kobo.

The result further showed that Access Bank Plc recorded the highest volume of activities; exchanging 46.441 million shares worth N444.481million, United Bank for Africa followed with 25.951 million shares cost N231.883million.

Zenith International Bank sold 13.371million shares valued at N309.021 million, Stanbic IBTC traded 12.812 million shares worth N492.787million, while Nigerian Breweries exchanged 5.903 million shares worth N1.062billion.