Sell-offs in MTN, Flourmill force Nigerian equities market down by N12bn

Omobayo Azeez

The equities market was further dragged along the red territory on Tuesday following sell-offs in the stocks of MTN Nigeria and Flourmills that led to a depreciation in their prices by 0.9 per cent and 6.7 per cent respectively.

This was despite the gain recorded by investors in large-cap securities such as BUA Cement, which gained by 1.6 per cent at the close of the second trading session of the week.

Consequently, the market sustained a bearish outlook to close daily activities with N12 billion loss, bringing total valuation of the equities market down to N13.006 trillion.

In the same vein, the NSE All-Share Index (ASI) shed 23.44 points or 0.09 per cent to close lower at N24,930.88 basis points from 24,954.32 it closed the previous session.

With market value dropping, turnover for the session recorded 15.7 per cent fall in total traded volume. Investors traded 200.39 million units valued at N1.59 billion, exchanged in 4,194 deals.

FBNH was the most traded stock by volume at 26.95 million units valued at N139.934 million, while ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by value at N368.47 million realized by trading a total of 22.632 million shares.

Performance across sectors was negative, as all sectors recorded declines, save the industrial goods index that gained by 1.0 per cent.

The insurance (-2.1 per cent) index led the declines, with the oil and gas (-0.6 per cent), consumer goods (-0.2 per cent) and banking (-0.1 per cent) indices following suit.

Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was negative following the emergence of 22 declining stocks, relative to 13 gainers.

According to trade statistics pulled from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), BUACEMENT led gainers with N0.63 to close at N41.40 per share while FIDSON followed by adding N0.33 to close at N3.63 per share.

SKYVAN, REDSTAREX and CAVERTON followed by gaining N0.22, N0.17 and N0.15 in share prices to close the day at N2.95, N3.80 and N2.19 per share respectively.

On a contrary note, Flourmill shed N1.40 and MTN lost N1 to close at N19.55 and N115 accordingly.

Other losers of the day include ARDOVA, CILEASING and NEIMETH with N0.65, N0.45 and N0.23 loses to close at N13.75, N4.35 and N2.09 per share respectively.