Nigeria bourse opens week with N8bn loss

The nation’s bourse opened trading for the week on Monday with a loss of N8 billion, the first decline in seven consecutive trading sessions.

Speficially, the market capitalisation which opened at N13.063 trillion dipped N8 billion or 0.06 per cent to close at N13.055 trillion.

Also, the All-Share Index (ASI) lost 14.28 points or 0.06 per cent to close at 25,027.61 compared with 25,041.89 achieved on Friday.

Consequently, the Month-to-Date gain moderated to +1.4 per cent, while the Year-to-Date loss increased to -6.8 per cent.

The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in large and medium capitalised stocks, amongst which are; BUA Cement, UACN, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Zenith Bank and United Bank for Africa.

On market performance for this week, analysts at United Capital Plc said; “We expect to see some profit-taking activities given the bullish performance in the last two weeks.

“However, we expect investors to position for the possibility of interim dividend announcements by tier-one banks who are yet to publish their financial results.”

Also, analysts at Afrinvest Limited expected mixed performance this week as investors may take profit following last week’s bullish run.

Champion Breweries led the losers’ chart in percentage terms, dropping by 9.47 per cent to close at 86k per share.

Honeywell followed with a loss of 8.57 per cent to close at 96k, while UACN shed 4.84 per cent to close at N5.90 per share.

Mutual Benefits Assurance declined 4.76 per cent to close at 20k, while ETI shed 4.71 per cent to close at N4.05 per share.

Conversely, Cornerstone Insurance recorded the highest gain to lead the gainers’ chart, gaining 9.09 per cent to close at 60k per share.

Unilever followed with a gain 7.14 per cent to close at N12, while United Capital rose by 6.93 per cent to close at N3.24 per share.

Guinness garnered 6.38 per cent, to close at N15, while Sunu Assurances appreciated by five per cent to close at 21k per share.

However, the total volume of shares traded rose by 4.9 per cent with an exchange of 175.33 million shares worth N1.43 billion achieved in 4,294 deals.

This was in contrast with a total of 167.14 million valued at N2.01 billion shares traded in 4,036 deals on Friday.

Transactions in the shares of FBN Holdings topped the activity chart with 22.94 million shares worth N116.29 million.

Unilever followed with 17.20 million shares worth N206.39 million, while Guaranty Trust Bank traded 13.98 million shares valued at N344.28 million.

Fidelity Bank accounted for 11.69 million shares worth N21.09 million, while Jaiz Bank transacted 11.329 million shares worth N6.45 million. (NAN)