Nigeria’s Stock Market Value Depreciates to N17.902 Trillion Last Week

Sell-off across the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continues to drag down the Exchange’s market value ahead of the Christmas holidays and end of the year account closure.

Last week, the Nigerian stock market closed in the red for the first time in almost eight weeks of consistent bullish runs. The market value of the bourse depreciated by 2.53 percent or N463 billion from N18.365 trillion it posted in the previous week to close at N17.902 trillion last week.

While the NSE All-Share Index declined by 887.25 index points or 2.53 percent from 35,137.99 index points attained in the previous week to settle at 34,250.74 index points last week.

During the week, investors traded a total of 2.265 billion shares valued at N20.990 billion in 23,722 deals, against a total of 1.675 billion shares worth N25.425 billion that exchanged hands in 23,650 deals in the previous week.

The financial services sector led the activity chart in terms of volume traded with 1.884 billion shares estimated at N14.933 billion but transacted in 13,602 deals. Therefore, the sector contributed 83.15 percent and 71.14 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value traded, respectively.

This was followed by the consumer goods industry with 116.400 million shares valued at N2.817 billion in 3,474 deals. The conglomerates industry came third with a turnover of 107.803 million shares worth N231.323 million that were exchanged in 897 deals.

Jaiz Bank, United Bank for Africa and Zenith Bank were the top three most traded stocks by volume during the week. The three accounted for a combined 894.000 million shares estimated at N7.077 billion that were traded in 4,045 transactions and contributed 39.47 percent and 33.72 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value, respectively.

The bourse year-to-date return declined from 30.91 percent posted in the previous week to 27.60 percent last week. While the Exchange posted a 2.26 percent decline this month and a 12.18 percent total gain in this fourth quarter.