Bears persist at Nigerian Exchange as investors further lose over $1bln

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Bears held sway as the Nigerian Exchange Limited extended its negative outing into the second trading session of the week, leaving the All Share Index (ASI) lower than 1.82 per cent.

On Tuesday, the ASI dipped further by 1.82 per cent to stand at 51,949.64 basis points as against a previous close of 52,911.51 basis points.

This negative outing at the local bourse dragged both the month-to-date and year-to-date performance of the ASI at 4.66 per cent and 21.62 per cent respectively.

Equities investors, therefore, lost N518 billion as the market capitalisation followed suit the direction of the ASI to stand at N28.007 trillion, representing a decrease of 1.82 per cent from the N28.525 trillion it stood at the end of the previous trading session.

Bears’ camp maintained dominance over the market breadth with 39 counters in the losers’ chart pitted against 17 counters in the gainers’ chart.

On the performance board, Japaul Gold gained 10.00 per cent to become the best performing stock in the session, followed by IMG, MRS Oil, Abbey and Academy Press to populated the top five gainers’ chart, while from the rear of the chart Guinness Nigeria, GSPE Plc, Mansard Assurance, Chams and Veritas Kapital were the top five losers.

All sectoral indices closed in the same direction as the ASI, with NGX Lotus Islam losing 2.70 per cent to become the most losing sector, while the NGX ASEM sector closed flat.

However, market activity as measured by both volume and value of trades gained weight at the end of the trading session as the daily traded volume stood at 720.192 million units, representing a 173.48 per cent spike from a volume of 263.339 million units traded in the previous session.

Value of those traded stocks skyrocketed by 149.79 per cent in the session to stand at N8.867 billion as against a value of N3.550 billion recorded in the previous trading session.

Ecobank Transnational Incorporated dominated the volume charts as the top traded stock by volume for the trading session, followed by Jaiz Bank, Access Corporation, UACN and Transcorp to complete the list of the five most traded stocks by volume.

With regards to the value of traded stocks, ETI took the lead among the top five performers. It is flanked by Seplat Energy, UACN, Access Corporation and Zenith Bank.