Activities in the domestic equities market carried on last week’s bearish performances with the indices dropping by 0.38 per cent, amid sell pressure.Thus, the All-Share Index declined by 159.31 points or 0.38 per cent to close at 42,008.60 from 42,167.91 on Friday.

Consequently, the month-to-date loss increased to 2.9 per cent, while the year-to-date gain moderated to 4.3 per cent.

Similarly, the overall market capitalisation dipped N83 billion or 0.83 per cent to close at N21.920 trillion against N22.003 trillion on Friday.

The market negative performance was driven by price depreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks which are; Lafarge Africa, Vitafoam Nigeria, Unilever Nigeria, Dangote Sugar Refinery and United Bank for Africa (UBA).

Analysts at United Capital Plc said: “This week, we expect the equities market to remain sideways, with a bearish bias, as we do not expect any major catalyst to change the direction of the market.

“We think sustained selloffs in the equities market could present buy opportunities for investors.”

Market sentiment was negative with 24 stocks laggards in relative to 10 gainers.

Lafarge Africa led the losers’ chart in percentage terms by 9.94 per cent to close at N22.20, per share.

Linkage Assurance followed with 8.93 per cent to close at 51k, while Associated Bus Company lost 8.82 per cent to close at 31k per share.

Vitafoam Nigeria dropped 8.68 per cent to close at N20, while Fidelity Bank shed 5.60 per cent to close at N2.36 per share.

On the other hand, Royal Exchange dominated the gainers’ chart with 9.43 per cent to close at 58k per share.

UACN Property Development Company, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance and Meyer followed with 9.09 per cent each to close at N1.08, 48k and 24k, per share respectively.

Champion Breweries was up by 7.92 per cent to close at N2.59 per share.

However, the total volume of traded increased by 133.3 per cent to 422.18 million units valued at N4.47 billion exchanged in 5,059 deals.

This was against a total of 180.95 million shares worth N2.43 billion traded in 4,019 deals on Friday.

Transactions in the shares of FBN Holdings (FBNH) topped the activity chart with 128.87 million shares valued at N1.51 billion.

Sterling Bank followed with 77.77 million shares worth N115.78 million, while Guaranty Trust Bank Holding Company traded 47.79 million shares valued at N1.15 billion.

United Capital traded 20.96 million shares worth N202.72 million, while UBA transacted 18.59 million shares valued at N140.001 million.