Stock market tumbles by N140bn on sell-offs – Punch Newspapers

​The stock market rebounded from its previous day’s gain to record a N140bn loss at the end of trading.

This loss comes after two consecutive days of positive trading.

Both the All-Share Index and the market capitalisation depreciated by 0.38 per cent to 67,098.8 and N36.864tn.

This downward trend was driven by sell-offs in high and medium stocks on the local bourse such as Stanbic IBTC (-8.49 per cent), AccessCorp (-2.39 per cent), Fidelity Bank (-2.94 per cent), Oando Plc (-1.67 per cent), Zenith Bank (-0.75 per cent), FBN Holdings (-0.31 per cent), NASCON Allied Industries (-1.72 per cent), Nestle (-0.49 per cent) and MTN Nigeria (-0.20 per cent).

At the close of trading, the volume of shares and their value depreciated by 24.87 per cent to 298.69 million units and 4.60 per cent to N4.48bn exchanged in 5,348 deals. The number of stocks that traded on the exchange on Thursday stood at 114.

Of the five tracked sectors, four closed in the negative territory, except for the Oil and Gas sector, which remained unchanged from the previous day. Consequently, the Banking, Insurance, and Consumer Goods nosedived by 1.08 per cent, 1.04 per cent, and 0.07 per cent, respectively, while the Industrial Goods index was mildly bearish.

Investors’ sentiments were negative as reflected in 25 stocks depreciating against 16 gainers.

On the gainers’ chart were Learn Africa whose shares appreciated by 10 per cent to close at N3.30, Daar Communications gained 9.52 per cent to close at N0.23, UPDC appreciated by 8 per cent to close at N1.35, Thomas Wyatt gained 6.80 per cent to close at N3.30 and Sunu Assurance’s shares rose by 6.67 per cent to close at N1.12 per unit.

At the close of Thursday’s session, United Bank for Africa’s shares were the most traded security in both volumes and value, with 56.29 million units worth N1.05bn.