Bears sustain hold as Nigerian stock market dips further

Bearish trend continued on Tuesday as the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index fell by 0.29 per cent to close at 38,601.83 basis points.

Following sell-offs on mid-capitalised and heavy weighted stocks, the market capitalisation further dropped to N20.20tn.

At the close of the day’s trading session, investors lost N58.75bn, as the year-to-date loss of the NSE ASI worsened to -4.14 per cent.

The bearish activity also saw a total number of 18 stocks decline against 15 stocks that increased.

Share prices of bellwethers such as MTN Nigeria Communications, Lafarge Africa and Zenith Bank suffered setbacks, declining by 2.38 per cent, 0.48 per cent and 0.45 per cent as investors dumped part of their holdings.

Performance was also bearish across sub-sector gauges tracked as three out of the five indices closed in the red zone.

The consumer goods, oil and gas and industrial indices moderated by 0.37 per cent, 0.20 per cent and 0.05 per cent respectively, while the banking and insurance indices rose by 0.03 per cent and 0.59 per cent.

Trading activity was upbeat as the total volume and value of stocks traded up, thus the total volume of stocks rose by 7.64 per cent to 208.80 million units valued at N2.909bn in 4,011 deals.