Nigeria’s equities market moderated further to close the week’s trading on a negative note.
The southwards movement pushed the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index to decline by 0.06 per cent to 40,186.70, while the market capitalisation dropped by 0.05 per cent to close at N21.03.
Friday’s trading session saw investors lose N10.9bn, as the domestic bourse printed 20 losers against 18 gainers.
Consequently, the Year-to-Date gain of the ASI turned negative to 0.2 per cent.
Notably, blue chip stocks such as Seplat Petroleum, Lafarge Africa and FBN Holdings continued to trek southwards, as their respective share prices fell amid sell-offs.
Of the five indices tracked, three closed in the red zone. They include the insurance, oil and gas, and industrial indices, which declined by 1.83 per cent, 1.82 per cent and 0.15 per cent respectively.
On the positive side, the banking index rose by 1.95 per cent, and the consumer goods index by 0.08 per cent.
Meanwhile, trading activity was weak, as total deals, volume and value of stocks dipped.
Thus, the volume of trade declined by 27.80 per cent to 307.78 million units valued at N2.91bn in 4,393 deals.
