By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Benchmark index at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday dropped 0.32 percent as it closed at 41,264.65 points, while market capitalisation depreciated by N44.05 billion to close at N13.63 trillion.
The loss today returned the market’s year-to-date returns back to negative at -0.16 percent, and analysts at Cordros Capital say the decline witnessed on Monday at the Nigerian bourse was mirrored in today’s session, as continuous blue-chip sell-offs in various sectors led to the 0.32 percent depreciation in the benchmark index.
Codros analysts in its market review today affirmed that the market’s bearish session was emulated in four (4) of the five (5) NSE sectoral indices.
It reported the oil/gas index fell by 1.81 percent, the consumer goods index followed with a 0.76 percent decline, while the industrial and insurance indices lost 0.60 percent and 0.47 percent respectively. ‘’On the other hand, the banking index grew marginally by 0.01 percent,’’ the report said.
According to the Cordros analysts, the market breadth worsened with 20 gainers and 33 losers at the close of transaction. It affirmed that volume traded increased by 33.12 percent to 296.10 million shares, valued at N6.49 billion traded in 6,034 deals.
‘’With the declines seen in the last two (2) sessions, we expect a rebound tomorrow as price declines have left some blue chips looking attractive,’’ Cordros said.
Turnover at the Nigerian bourse closed positive as volume traded climbed up 33.12 percent from a negative of 37.51 percent recorded in the previous session.
A snapshot of the NSE’s market activity for today shows that shares of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc, Skye Bank Plc and Sterling Bank Plc emerged the most active stocks to boost market turnover. While, Dangote Cement Plc led the list of active stocks, followed by Transcorp that recorded impressive volume spike and topped market value list.
In volume Dangcem recorded 13, 872,357 shares traded valued at N3.057 billion, while transcorp in terms of volume traded 91,441,699 valued at N613.085 million.
