By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The bears on Monday gripped tight the Nigerian Equities market as benchmark index dipped 0.55% to close at 37,343.85 points, while market capitalisation lost N68.36 billion to close at N12.37 trillion.

Current Year-to-Date (YTD) returns at the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) now stands at a negative 9.64 percent.

This is coming on the heels of the bearish run recorded last week when the Nigerian bourse closed the week with all-share index (ASI) and market capitalisation depreciating by 3.93 percent and 3.64 percent to close at 37,550.24 and N12.437 trillion respectively.

Cordros daily update said the bearish sentiment at the end of today’s session was as a result of sell-offs in the industrial and consumer goods sectors of the NSE propelling the market to its eighth (8) consecutive days losing spree.

The report says three (3) out of the five (5) NSE sectoral indices posted declines. The banking and insurance indices grew by 1.80 percent and 0.18 percent respectively. The industrial goods index led the losers chart with a 2.75 percent fall, while the consumer goods and oil/gas indices also went down by 0.94 percent and 0.10 percent respectively.

According to the report, market breadth remained negative as the Nigerian bourse closed the day’s session with 42 losers and 11 gainers. Skye Bank Plc led the gainers chart with a gain of 0.24 kobo, while soap makers, PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc led the losers chart with a loss of N2.32 kobo.

In terms of turnover, the Nigerian equities market closed the session as volume traded slowed by 13.80 percent to N285.13 million shares, worth N3.29 billion and traded in 4,306 deals.

‘’Despite our belief that most counters are underpriced, we opine a lack of any catalyst could weigh on the market,’’ the Cordros update said.