Nigeria’s equity market opened on a sluggish note today with the benchmark indices of the All-Share Index (ASI) and market capitalisation dipped 0.2 percent apiece at the close of trading.
Available report on the market by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) showed that the ASI closed at 43,056.51 having dropped 111.35 absolute points from 43,167.86 points, while market value closed at N15.402 trillion. This indicated investors’ loss of N105 billion from the N15.507 trillion the market opened trading for the week.
Market breadth suggested some underlying weakness to the day’s trading session as bears held sway. Trading figures showed 34 stocks recording loss as against 19 stocks on the gainers’ table, a reflection of depressive market outlook.
The downturn was associated with losses recorded in medium and large capitalized stocks, amongst which are; UBA (-4.65%), Cadbury (-4.35%), UBN (-4.23%), Unilever (-2.25%), FBNH (-1.30%), Dangflour (-0.93%) Guinness (-0.90) Guaranty (-0.31) and Nestle (-0.07%).
Gainers were led by Total Oil Nigeria Plc (+1.69%), Dangote Sugar share price up (+3.78%), Nigerian Breweries Plc gained (+0.39%), UACN up (+2.57%) and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (+1.01) per share.
The Exchange reported that the entire share capital of Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc (“SBC”) was delisted from the Daily Official List of the NSE on Friday. The delisting of the entire issued share capital of SBC followed its shareholders’ approval of a Scheme of Arrangement to restructure and delist from the Exchange.
A total of 400,000,632 units of FBN holdings were executed as an off-market trade yesterday at N12.50 in two deals. These deals were negotiated deals between Cordros Securities Limited (buyer) and Fundvine Capital & Securities Limited (seller). This led to the difference in the percentage of ASI and market capitalization.
Overall, 831 million shares were sold at N10.57 billion in 5,651 deals.
