Investors lament N6b loss to festive breaks

‘Excess shares may depress market indices further this week’

Investors in the capital market may have lost N6 billion to the three-day public holidays declared by the Federal Government to commemorate the Eid-el Maulud and Christmas celebrations, going by situational analyses from the operators over the weekend.

The loss calculation was based on the fact that the nation’s stock market usually records N2 billion transactions on a daily basis and with the festivity break, investment worth N6 billion would have slipped out of the market.

Already, investors had incurred over N2 trillion loss this year due to general macro-economic challenges, accentuated by the persistent fall in oil prices.

The current situation, according to analysts, could lead to excessive dump of shares from today, when the market resumes and further depress indices as a result of market forces interplay.

Specifically, the Managing Director of Crane Securities Limited, Mike Ezeh explained that the three -day holidays would definitely take its toll on the market as there would be backlog of shares stockpiled in Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS).

“This will lead to excess of shares on Tuesday (today), when the market resumes. This will further depress the market because of market forces interplay. Shareholders who have needs will not be able to meet their obligations.

“This ultimately defeats the aim of having shares as a store of value and therefore not giving the shareholder the advantage, given the advantage of shares being next to cash. The holidays will definitely take its toll on the market.”

The Managing Director of Highcap Securities Limited, David Adonri said:
“Usually, market does average turnover of N2 billion per day. Therefore, potential loss is approximately N4 billion. Notwithstanding that turnover of the market would have increased, All-share index and market capitalisation could be positive or negative depending on aggregate price movement.”

At the close of transactions on Wednesday, the market witnessed a significant drop in the volume of shares traded, as a turnover of 743.117 million shares worth N6.591 billion was recorded by investors in 8,325.

“This volume recorded was, however, lower than a total of 1.457 billion shares valued at N13.803 billion that changed hands in 13,648 deals during the preceding week.”