Nigerian equity market extends downtrend by 1.1%

Profit-taking in Dangote Cement, Bua Cement and MTNN swayed the Nigerian equity market southward for the second consecutive sessions on Tuesday as it declined 1.1 per cent.

Dangote Cement was down 4.3 per cent, Bua Cement 0.9 per cent and MTNN 0.4 per cent, which caused the All-Share Index (ASI) shed 106bps to close at 23,695.90 points, while market capitalization lost ₦132.9 billion to close ₦12.3trillion.

NEIMETH gained 10 per cent to top 13 other gainers, while CAVERTON emerged as the top loser among 15 others, having shed 10 per cent.

The total volume and value of equities traded were down 24.0 per cent and 5.6 per cent to 155.6m units and ₦1.7 billion respectively.

The most active stocks by volume were FBNH (27.8m units), UACN (16.6m units) and GTBank (15.0m units), while Dangote Cement (₦350.3bn), GTBank (₦314.7bn) and MTNN (₦265.5bn) led the value chart.

The Industrial Goods index led laggards, down 1.8 per cent following profit-taking in Dangote Cement (-4.3 per cent) and Bua Cement (-0.9 per cent), the Insurance and Banking indices lost, declining 0.6 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively due to sell pressures in WAPIC (-6.7 per cent), LASACO (-7.4 per cent), UBA (-1.6 per cent) and Access Bank (-0.8 per cent).

Meanwhile, MTNN (-0.4 per cent) and Guinness (-1.1 per cent) dragged the AFR-ICT and Consumer Goods indices lower by 0.2 per cent and 0.02 per cent respectively.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange has lost 11.7 per cent this year.