Bears hold sway as equities market declines by 0.40%

Nigeria’s equities market traded further down on Thursday to continue a bearish momentum.

As a result, the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index moderated by 0.40 per cent to 39,364.67 points.

Market capitalisation also fell by 0.40 per cent to close at N20.595, even as investors lost N82.31bn and the Year-to-Date loss worsened to -2.2 per cent.

At the close of trading, the market printed 47 losers and 12 gainers, amid sell-offs witnessed across medium and large capitalised stocks.

Notably, the share prices of Presco, Nigerian Breweries, Ardova, Access Bank and Guaranty Trust Bank decline by 5.87 per cent, 3.85 per cent, 9.85 per cent, 3.11 per cent and 0.63 per cent respectively.

Sectoral performance remained weak across the sub-sectors tracked, save the industrial index which rose by 0.19 per cent.

The banking, insurance, consumer goods and oil and gas indices fell by 1.54 per cent, 4.04 per cent, 1.47 per cent and 0.65 per cent respectively.

However, trading activity was upbeat. While total volume of stocks traded doubled, total deals and value also closed in the green zone.

The total volume of trade rose by 101.84 per cent to 493.17 million units valued at N 4.72bn in 5,486 deals.