NSE Drops N108bn as Bearish Trend Continues

• NSE Drops N108bn as Bearish Trend Continues

The Nigerian Stock Exchange market dipped again on Monday as investors continued to remain on the sideline despite the conclusion of the general elections.

The market capitalisation of listed equities declined from N11.905 trillion on Friday to N11.787 trillion on Monday. Representing a decline of N108 billion.

Similarly, the gauge of the index, the NSE All-Share Index declined by 0.90 percent to close at 31,636.66 points.

Again, Year-to-Date return that was around 4 percent in early February has dropped to 0.66 percent.

Also, the activity level on the trading floor dropped as the volume of shares traded plunged by 44.96 percent to 128.4 million shares. The total value of shares traded however surged by 5.08 percent to N2.39 billion.

Analysts at Afrinvest Research said: “Similar to last week, we expect to see buying activities in the early part of the week as investors anticipate positive earnings results of stocks. However, due to the bearish investor sentiment, we expect the uptick in market performance to be short-lived. Thus, we maintain our bearish outlook over the near-term.”