Equities market bleeds further as Index closes at month-low

At the end of equities trading on The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday, the benchmark index weakened by 0.29 per cent to close at a month-low of 27,555.31 basis points from 27,634.99 basis points, while Year to Date loss dips to 3.8 per cent.

The market capitalisation depreciated by N27.4 billion to settle at N9.5 trillion from the opening value of N9.49 trillion.

Similar to Monday trading session, activity level was mixed as volume of stocks traded slid by 39.8 per cent to 154.1 million units, while value traded advanced 107.8 per cent to N1.6 billion.

The result of daily activity showed that the bearish performance was largely driven by sell pressure on Seplat Plc shares which by five per cent, ETI’s by 2.6 per cent, Guinness Nigeria Plc at  3.9 per cent and Nestlé Nigeria Plc shares at 0.7 per cent.

Oil & Gas index led decliners as Seplat and Oando stocks dipped by five per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively.

Performance across sectors was also bearish as all indices closed in the red save for the Industrial Goods index which rose 0.3 per cent on account of bargain hunting in WAPCO (+0.8 per cent).

The Banking index followed as it waned 0.9 per cent on account of losses in ETI (-2.6 per cent) and GUARANTY (-0.6 per cent).

Similarly, the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices weakened 0.3 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively, dragged by negative sentiments in WAPIC whose stocks went down by -3.9 per cent, Nestle’s by 0.7 per cent and Guinness by 3.9 per cent.