Investors lose N329bn on NSE, amid COVID-19 fear, fall in oil price

 

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) market capitalisation opened the week on Monday with a huge loss of N329 billion due to persistent fall in global oil price and rising cases of COVID-19.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the market capitalisation which opened at N13.694 trillion shed N329 billion to close at N13.365 trillion.

Also, the All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 632.07 points or 2.41 per cent to close at 25,647.54 against 26,279.61 on Friday, the largest decline since Sept. 12, 2019.

Consequently, the Month-to-Date return loss stood at 2.2 per cent, as Year-to-Date loss also increased to 4.5 per cent.

The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which were; Nigerian Breweries, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank and Conoil.

Analysts at Afrinvest Limited stated that “With the widespread of COVID-19 inducing a four-year low in global crude oil prices, we believe the dark clouds are gathering.

“As such, we expect investors to remain risk-averse toward the equities market in the near term, although there is headroom for bargain hunting activities due to cheap valuation of stocks and the local bourse relative to peers.”

Market breadth closed negative, with only one gainer against 39 losers.

Access Bank, Conoil, Cornerstone Insurance, Fidelity Bank, Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, Oando, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, United Capital and Unilever Nigeria led the losers’ chart by 10 per cent each,  to close at N7.65, N16.20, 45 kobo, N1.80, N2.25, N2.43, N31.50, N2.34 and N11.70, per share, respectively.

Vitafoam Nigeria and Guaranty Trust Bank followed with a decline of 9.96 per cent each,  to close at N4.07 and N22.15 per share respectively.

Nigerian Breweries lost 9.93 per cent to close at N36.75 per share.

On the other hand, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance was the only gainer growing by 7.14 per cent to close at 30k per share.

Similarly, the total volume of shares traded dropped by 48.6 per cent with an exchange of 185.65 million shares valued  N1.83 billion,  traded in 2,690 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 361.11 million shares worth N4.28 billion traded in 4,602 deals on Friday.

Transactions in the shares of Zenith Bank topped the activity chart with 53.51 million shares worth N907.08 million.

Transcorp came second with 23.06 million shares worth N18.004 million, while Guaranty Trust Bank accounted for 15.21 million shares valued  N336.81 million.

Skyway Aviation Handling Company traded 8.37 million shares worth N19.59 million, while Law Union and Rock Insurance sold 6.87 million shares valued N6.69 million. (NAN)

Picture caption:

L – R: Jude Chiemeka, Head, Trading Business Division, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Oluwole Adeosun, Member, National Council, NSE; Rt. Hon Comrade Philip Shaibu, Deputy Governor, Edo State; Oscar N. Onyema, OON, Chief Executive Officer, NSE; His Excellency, Godwin Obaseki, Executive Governor, Edo State; Tinuade Awe, Executive Director, Regulation, NSE and Bola Adeeko, Head, Shared Services Division, NSE during a Closing Gong Ceremony at the Exchange today.