Bears took grasp of the capital market, on Wednesday and Thursday, propelling investors to a cumulative loss of N1.58trillion within two days.
On Wednesday, the domestic equities market succumbed to sell pressure as the overall market capitalisation shed N882 billion, ending its five-day winning streak.
Similarly, yesterday, the bears continued to dominate the local equities market yesterday as the overall capitalization succumbed to a second successive loss with a decline of N707 billion.
The All-Share Index (ASI) shed 1,297.99 points, representing a loss of 2.03 per cent to close at 62,748.94points. Also, market capitalisation declined by N707 billion to close at N34.167 trillion.
The yesterday’s downturn was driven by price decline in large and medium capitalised stocks amongst which are; MTN Nigeria Communications (MTNN), Eterna, Nigerian Breweries, Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) and Nigerian Exchange Group.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment closed negative, as 19 stocks gained relative to 57 losers. John Holt emerged the highest price gainer of 10 per cent to close at N1.65, per share. Dangote Sugar Refinery followed with a gain of 9.94 per cent to close at N29.85, while NASCON Allied Industries advanced by 9.91 per cent to close at N25.50, per share.
Skyway Aviation Handling Company increased by 9.80 per cent to close at N13.45, while Golden Guinea Breweries added 9.74 per cent to close at N2.93, per share.
On the other side, Fidelity Bank, Omatek Ventures, Sovereign Trust Insurance, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Wema Bank and Transcorp Hotel led others on the losers’ chart with 10 per cent each to close at N7.11, 54 kobo, 50 kobo, N61.20, N4.50 and N35.55 in that order, per share. Unity Bank and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) followed with a decline of 9.94 per cent each to close at N1.54 and N14.05 respectively, while Learn Africa shed 9.93 per cent to close at N3.81, per share.
Also, the total volume traded decreased by 31.36 per cent to 798.467 million units, valued at N10.449 billion, and exchanged in 10,296 deals. Transactions in the shares of United Bank for Africa led the activity with 99.016 billion shares worth N1.331 billion, FBN Holdings (FBNH) followed with account of 72.688 million shares valued at N1.284 billion, while Transnational Corporation (Transcorp) traded 68.797 million shares valued at N280.804 million.
FCMB Group traded 67.892 million shares worth N415.893 million, while GTCO traded 51.243 million shares worth N1.771 billion.
