Nigerian investors lose N371.33bn as bears return

Bears dragged the Nigerian equities market down at the close of Tuesday’s trade to resume its southwards movement.

As a result, Monday’s gain was short-lived, leaving the All-Share Index to contract by 1.80 per cent to 38,686.85 points amid sell-offs on blue-chip stocks.

Also, the market capitalisation fell by 1.80 per cent to close at N20.24tn; thus at the close of trading, investors lost N371.33bn.

Consequently, the Year-to-Date loss of the ASI worsened to -3.93 per cent, while the domestic bourse recorded 21 losers and 15 gainers.

“Specifically, we saw maximum loss for the day (10 per cent) in the share price of UBA, as the Tier-1 bank cut its final dividend to N0.35k from N0.80k it paid last year,” analysts at Cowry Asset Management said.

The share prices of Lafarge Africa and Zenith Bank also declined by 5.86 per cent and 2.70 per cent.

Meanwhile, of the five indices tracked, four closed in the red zone. While the banking, insurance, oil and gas and industrial indices fell by 5.30 per cent, 0.63 per cent, 0.15 per cent and 0.52 per cent, the consumer goods index rose by 0.39 per cent.

Trading activity was upbeat, as the total volume and value of stocks traded rose.

At the close of the day’s trading, total volume of trade rose by 64.83 per cent to 489.98 million units valued at N6.65bn in 4,616 deals.