Stock Market Records Marginal Loss After N180bn Gain

Transactions on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Monday recorded a marginal loss to commence the weekly trading activities.

The market breath closed negative with 16 losers against 14 gainers.

Key market indicators, the NSE ASI, declined by 0.005 per cent as investors continued to sell off their shares following the coronavirus global threat.

Consequently, the All-Share Index dropped by 1.18 basis points or 0.005 per cent from 22,921.59 index points last Friday to 22,920.41while the market capitalisation of equities depreciated by N613m to close at N11,945.042tn from N11,945.655tn.

On the activity chart, premium subsector dominated in volume terms with 177.6 million shares exchanged in 2,152 deals.

The subsector was enhanced by the activities in the shares of FBNH Plc and Zenith Bank Plc.

Banking subsector boosted by the activities on the shares of GTBank Plc and Fidelity followed with 85.3 million units traded in 847 deals.

In all, investors exchanged a total of 345.4 million shares in 4,930 deals.

Further analysis of the day’s trading showed that Julius Berger Plc and Linkage Insurance Plc led the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent each to close at N26.95 and 55 kobo per share respectively.

BUA Cement Plc followed with 8.48per cent to close at N34.55 per share and Nascon Plc with a gain of 7.49 per cent to close at N10.05 per share.

On the flip side, Guinness Nigeria Plc led the losers’ chart with a drop of 9.38 per cent to close at N20.30 per share.

PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc followed with a loss of 9.09 per cent to close at N4.00 per share while Livestock Feeds Nigeria Plc dropped by 7.14 per cent to close at 65 kobo per share.