Equities Market: No End in Sight as Investors Lose Another N170bn on Monday

• Equities Market: No End in Sight as Investors Lose Another N170bn on Monday

There seems to be no end in sight for the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) market as investors lost another N170 billion on Monday after losing N547 billion last week.

The market capitalisation drop from N11.124 trillion on Friday to N10.954 trillion on Monday.

The NSE All-share Index shed 1.53 percent to close at 29,162.2 basis points, down from 29,616.38 recorded on Friday.

Still, business activity surged on the trading floor of the exchange on Monday as volume and value traded grew by 13.4 percent and 50.6 percent to 455.875 million units and N5.26 billion, respectively.

Top traded stocks by volume were Sterling Bank Plc (93.4 million units), Guaranty Trust Bank (78.3 million units) and Tripple Gee and Company Plc (60 million units), while GTB (N2.7 billion), Zenith Bank Plc (N540.7 million) and 11 Plc were the top traded stocks by value.

Performance was negative across most sectors as three of the five sectors closed in the red.

The banking and industrial sectors top losers table, losing 2.15 percent and 0.88 percent, respectively.

Followed by consumer goods sector, depreciated by 0.35 percent following sell-offs in Guinness Nigeria Plc and Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc.

While the insurance and oil and gas sectors gained 0.20 percent and 0.08 percent, respectively.

Analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited said, “In the near term, we expect to see bargain hunting activities due to the attractive entry prices of several fundamentally sound stocks in the market, although this may be short-lived in the absence of the much needed economic reforms to attract investors.”