By Chris Ndibe
Nigeria’s bourse opened trading on Monday on a negative trend with the market indicators declining by 0.27 per cent, amid sell pressure in 16 stocks.
Specifically, the All-Share Index dipped 77.82 points or 0.27 per cent to close at 28,337.49 from 28,415.31 achieved on Friday.
Also, the market capitalisation which opened at N14.852 trillion lost N41 billion to close at N14.811 trillion.
The downtrend was impacted by losses recorded in large and medium capitalised stocks, amongst which are; Flour Mills, BUA Cement, MTN Nigeria Communications, International Breweries and Africa Prudential.
Analysts at Afrinvest Ltd. anticipated losses in the market to be sustained due to profit taking by investors.
Market sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, closed negative with 16 stocks compared with 13 gainers.
An analysis of price movement chart shows that
International Breweries led the losers’ chart in percentage terms, losing 9.11 per cent to close at N4.29 per share.
AXA Mansard trailed with 5.67 per cent to close at N1.83, while Flour Mills shed 4.55 per cent to close at N21per share.
Regency Alliance lost 4.35 per cent to close at 22k, while Portland Paints depreciated by 3.59 per cent to close at N2.15 per share.
Conversely, Eterna dominated the gainers’ chart in percentage terms, gaining 9.92 per cent to close at N3.99 per share.
Union Diagnostic came second with 8.33 per cent to close at 26k, while Transcorp rose by 4.84 per cent to close at 65k per share.
Cutix gained 4.65 per cent to close at N1.80, while Seplat appreciated by 2.44 per cent to close at N420 per share.
Also, the total volume of shares traded declined by 3.90 per cent with an exchange of 369.18 million shares worth N5.06 billion in 4,750 deals.
This was in contrast with a turnover of 384.14 million shares valued at N3.99 billion exchanged in 5,759 deals on Friday.
Transactions in the shares of United Bank for Africa topped the activity chart with 95.05 million shares valued at N678.74 million.
Guaranty Trust Bank accounted for 65.48 million shares worth N1.99 billion, while Zenith Bank sold 47.22 million shares valued at N944.31 million. FBN Holdings accounted for 37.62 million shares worth N231.89 million, while Transcorp transacted 28.12 million shares valued at N18.17 million.
