By Chris Ndibe
The Nigerian stock market opened for the week on Monday with a loss of N40 billion, halting five consecutive days positive run.
Speficially, the market capitalisation which opened at N21.530 trillion shed N40 billion to close at N21.490 trillion.
Also, the All Share Index which opened at 41,176.14 lost 93.76 points or 0.23 per cent to close at 41,082.38.
The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, among which are; Dangote Cement, Flour Mills, Guinness, NASCON Allied Industries and FBN Holdings.
Analysts at United Capital said that investors would take advantage of gains posted recently to book profit.
“While we expect investors to book some profit from last week’s gains, demand for high-yield dividend companies should sustain the market’s bullish momentum,” they said.
An analysis of the price movement chart shows that Japaul Gold and Ventures led the losers’ chart in percentage terms, losing 6.58 per cent to close at N1.42 per share.
Flour Mills trailed with a loss of 5.49 per cent to close at N31, while Wema Bank dipped 5.33 per cent to close at 71k per share.
Neimeth shed 4.76 per cent to close at N2, while GlaxoSmithKline depreciated by 4.29 per cent to close at N6.70 per share.
Conversely, African Alliance Insurance, AIICO Insurance, Cadbury Nigeria, R.T. Briscoe, Trans-Nationwide Express and Universal Insurance dominated the gainers’ chart in percentage terms, gaining 10 per cent each, to close at 22k, N1.32, N10.45, 22k, 88k and 22k per share, respectively.
BOC Gases followed with 9.98 per cent to close at N13.77, while Livestock Feeds rose by 9.95 per cent to close at N2.32 per share.
Meanwhile, the total volume of shares traded increased by 10.77 per cent as investors bought and sold 738.53 million shares worth N4.17 billion in 7,396 deals.
This was in contrast with 666.61 million shares valued at N6.39 billion achieved in 6,980 deals on Friday.
Transactions in the shares of Japaul Gold and Ventures topped the activity chart with 92.36 million shares worth N145.79 million.
Universal Insurance followed with 51.79 million shares valued at N10.41 million, while Transcorp traded 43.15 million shares worth N46.17 million.
FBNH traded 39.77 million shares valued at N298.25 million, while AXA Mansard Insurance transacted 38.19 million shares worth N63.88 million.
