By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Continuous bears reign on Wednesday pushed the Nigerian Stock market to its third consecutive loss as all share index (ASI) declined marginally by 0.4 percent to 29,434.46 points, while market capitalisation dropped by N39.79 billion to N9.82trillion.
With today’s marginal loss, current market year-to-date (Y-t-D) returns on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) stands at a negative 15.07 percent.
Cordros market update affirms that today’s performance was as a result of market uncertainty and consequently investors’ continued exit, which further shaved the index ahead of next week’s general election.
According to the report, gains in large capitalised stocks like cement producer, Dangote Cement Plc, oil markete,r Oando Plc and Africa’s top tier lender United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) cushioned the effect of massive sell-offs experienced in today’s session.
Cordros says all NSE sector indices, with the exception of the Industrial Goods, recorded losses. “Once again, the Banking index led the losers’ chart with a 2.28 percent loss as sell-offs continued to prevail. The Consumer Goods indices lost 0.98 percent while the Insurance and Oil/Gas indices lost marginally by 0.41 percent and 0.59 percent respectively.
However, at the end of the session’s business on the Nigerian bourse, market breadth improved slightly recording 11 gainers and 27 losers.
On the contrary, fading trade momentum was evident as 188.35 million shares were traded, a decline of 58.36 percent recorded from the previous session. Shares valued at N1.62 billion exchanged hands in 3,043 deals.
The Cordros update affirmed that the market is likely to close red tomorrow if bearish investor sentiment is maintained.
