Downtrend persists on Nigerian equity market; sheds 0.29%

The Nigerian equity market continued a downward trend on Monday, shedding 0.29 per cent to extend its downtrend the third consecutive trading day.

The loss was underpinned on unrelenting sell pressure witnessed on bellwether stocks like ETI, FBNH, UBA and 8 others.

The All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 72.86 absolute points, representing a 0.29 per cent decline to close at 24,753.89 points, while Market Capitalization lost N38.02 million, representing a dip of 0.29 per cent to close at N12.91 trillion.

JAPAULOIL added 8.70 per cent to emerge as the top gainers, while NEIMETH emerged as the top loser, having 9.74 per cent.

Activity level waned as volume and value traded fell 2 8.6 per cent and 3 4.4 per cent to 124.7m units and ₦1.3bn respectively. The most active stocks by volume were JAPAULOIL (1 3.6m unit), GTBank (1 1.3m unit) and Zenith Bank (10.4m units) while GTBank (₦260.5m), Okomu Oil (₦188.4m) and NESTLE (₦180.4m) led by value.

The Consumer Goods index was the only gainer, up by 3.68 per cent, buoyed by price appreciation in NESTLE (+7.72 per cent). On the flipside, selloffs in STANBIC (-8.33 per cent), GUARANTY (-1.73 per cent), TRANSCORP (-5.4 1 per cent) and NAHCO (-3.85 per cent) dragged the Bank (-1.93 per cent) and Services (-0.43 per cent) indices lower.

Similarly, Industrial Goods, Healthcare and Oil & Gas indices moderated by 0.12 per cent, 0.02 per cent and 0.01 per cent respectively owing to selloffs in NEIMETH (-9.7 4 per cent), BUA CEMENT (-2.2 7 per cent) and ARDOVA (-5.0 9 per cent). Meanwhile, the Agriculture and ICT indices closed flat.