The Market Capitalisation of listed equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchanged shed N101bn last week despite a rally by stocks in the last three trading sessions.
The market had opened the week negative with the key indices retracting by -0.41 per cent. After falling by N35bn on Monday, the negative trend continued on Tuesday, with the Market Capitalisation depreciating by N101bn.
Similarly, the NSE All Share Index, which dropped by 108.96 basis points on Monday, fell sharply on Tuesday as it shed -1.20 per cent or 318.92 basis points.
A rally by equities on Wednesday halted the slide with the key benchmark indices going up by 0.21 per cent. The index gained 56.28 points, while market capitalisation rose by N18bn.
The gains were extended marginally on Thursday as the index rose by 0.04 per cent or 9.93 basis points, while market capitalisation added N3bn.
Both indicators erased more losses on Friday as they edged higher – by 0.16 basis points – to close positive for the third consecutive day.
The losses for the week, however, outweighed the gains with the market closing the week with an aggregate loss of -1.19 per cent.
While the market had suffered an aggregate fall of N101bn to close the week at N8.413tn, the NSE ASI sank by 317.36 basis points to close the week at 26,400.94 basis points compared to the 0.60 per cent increase it recorded the previous week when it closed at 26,718.30.
Following the volatility witnessed in the week, analysts said a cautious approach was necessary as the trend indicated that the end of year off loading had started.
In all, investors traded 1.29 billion shares worth N9.41bn for the week under review, as against the 1.18 billion shares traded in 14,048 deals the previous week.
As usual, the Financial Services Sector dominated the market in terms of traded volume with 876.89 million shares valued at N5.23bn traded in 11,454 transactions. This amounted to 67.80 per cent of the combined traded volume of all sectors for the week.
Source: Punch (written by Simon Ejembi)