By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigerian stocks on Wednesday shed 2.19 percent amidst sell-offs across all sectors on the nation’s bourse.
At the end of today’s session, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) all-share index (ASI) closed at 34,175 points, while market capitalisation decreased by N260.36 billion to N11.61 trillion.
Cordros daily market update say the decline reduced the Month-to-Date (M-t-D) gain to 7.66 percent, while the Year-to-date (Y-t-D) return fell to 1.39 percent.
This is coming on the heels of profit-taking for the second consecutive session as the sell-offs across all the NSE sectors pushed the market’s Y-t-D return back to negative.
The Cordros report affirmed that all five (5) NSE sector indices recorded declines. “The Oil/Gas and Banking indices remained atop the losers’ chart with respective losses of 3.63 percent and 3.60 percent,” the report added.
Similarly, the Industrial index followed with a 3.15 percent decline, while the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices also dropped by 1.96 percent and 1.90 percent respectively.
At the close of business on the Nigerian bourse, market breadth worsened with 10 gainers and 44 losers. One of Nigeria’s leading conglomerates AG Leventis Nigeria Plc topped the gainers chart with a gain of 0.12 kobo, while oil marketing firm, Oando Plc emerged top loser with a loss of N1.70.
In terms of turnover, volume traded increased by 21.02 percent to 704.06 million shares valued at N4.66 billion and traded in 6,742 deals.
“We expect profit takings to begin to wane tomorrow as mid-to long term investors gradually make entries back to the market,” the Cordros update affirmed.
