Stock Market Closes Negative as Investors Lose N257bn

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) resumed bearish trend last week as most stocks closed in the red.

Investors traded 961.833 million shares valued at N9.181 billion in 20,058 transactions during the week. This was more than the 739.375 million shares worth N8.563 billion that were exchanged in 17,248 transactions in the previous week.

In terms of volume traded, the financial services sector led with 618.714 million shares valued at N4.338 billion traded in 9,669 transactions. The sector contributed 64.33 percent and 47.25 percent to the total volume and value traded, respectively.

This was followed by the consumer goods sector with 91.119 million shares valued at N2.27 billion but exchanged in 3,703 deals. In the third place was the conglomerates’ industry with a total turnover of 60.640 million shares worth N62.779 million that were exchanged in 556 transactions.

Accordingly, First Bank of Nigeria Holdings Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc led the bourse in terms of volume traded as the three accounted for a combined 275.099 million shares valued at N2.818 billion that investors traded in 3,497 transactions.

The three equities contributed 28.60 percent and 30.69 percent to the total volume and value traded, respectively.

The market capitalisation of listed equities depreciated by 1.99 percent or N257 billion from 12.952 trillion recorded in the previous week to N12.695 trillion last week.

Similarly, the NSE-All Share Index declined by 1.99 percent or 493.90 basis points from 24,829.02 bps to 24,336.12 bps last week. This pushed the year-to-date decline to 9.34 percent while July depreciation stood at 0.58 percent.