Sell-pressure drags the Nigerian equity market further down by 0.01%

The Nigerian Stock Market dipped for the fourth consecutive trading sessions on Tuesday, declining 0.01 on the back of persistent sell pressure on large stocks such as Access Bank, ETI, UBA and 20 others.

The All-Share Index (ASI) was lower by 2.57 absolute points, representing a drop of 0.01 per cent to close at 24,751.32 points, while the market capitalisation declined ₦2.0 billion to ₦12.9 trillion.

UAC-PROP increased by 7.69 per cent to top eight other gainers, as Unity Bank emerged as the top loser of 22 others, having shed 10 per cent.

The local bourse’s year-to-date performance worsened to -7.8 per cent on Tuesday.

Japaul Oil (25.0m units) topped the activity chart in volume terms, followed by FBNH (12.1m units) and GTBank (11.2m units), while GTBank (₦253.5m), Dangote Cement (₦251.2m) and MTNN (₦153.6m) led by value.

The AFR-ICT and Oil & Gas index gained, up 0.9 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively because of price appreciation in MTNN (+1.6 per cent) and OANDO (+2.0 per cent).

The Consumer Goods and Insurance indices led laggards, down 1.4 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively following price declines in Dangote Sugar (-9.9 per cent), Nigerian Breweries (-2.7 per cent), AIICO (-7.2 per cent) and MANSARD (-1.1 per cent).

The Banking sector also dipped 0.6 per cent, driven by sell-offs in ETI (-5.1 per cent) and Access Bank (-1.5 per cent),  while Industrial Goods sector shed 0.2 per cent due to the loss suffered by WAPCO (-2.2 per cent).