Investors in Nigerian equities lost N553 billion in four days, market report showed yesterday.

The successive declines were triggered by massive profit-taking deals and a rush to safety in the fixed-income market.

All the indices at the Nigerian stock market yesterday closed lower, capping a four-day session of market-wide selloff. The pressure almost entered panic mode with two losses in every three deals.

The aggregate market value of all quoted equities at the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) closed yesterday at N22.045 trillion, 2.45 per cent or N553 billion below this week’s opening value of N22.598 trillion.

The benchmark weighted index, the All Share Index (ASI)- a common value-based index that tracks all share prices at the NGX, also declined by 2.45 per cent or 1,060.31 points to close yesterday at 42,247.98 points compared with the week’s opening index of 43,308.29 points.

The concurrence between the face-value market capitalisation and the weighted benchmark index implies that the depreciation was due to decline in share prices rather than changes in volume of shares due occurrences such as delisting, consolidation of shares and redenomination among others.

With the four-day selling spree, the average year-to-date return for Nigerian equities has dropped to 4.9 per cent as against 7.4 per cent recorded at the end of November. So far, average loss in December stood at 2.3 per cent.

Yesterday, the sectoral analysis of the pricing trend was consistent with analysts’ viewpoint of market-wide sell pressure.

The NGX index, which tracks the 30 largest stocks at the stock market dropped by 0.52 per cent; the oil and gas Index depreciated by 3.5 per cent; the insurance Index dropped by 2.2 per cent; the banking index declined by 1.2 per cent while the industrial goods dipped by 0.1 per cent.

The NGX Consumer Goods Index played the contrarian with modest gain of 0.1 per cent.

The total turnover yesterday stood at 324.020 million shares valued at N5.29 billion in 4,706 deals, with 34 losers against 17 gainers. FBN Holding was the most active stock with a turnover of 113.36 million shares valued at N1.35 billion.

(Courtesy The Nation)

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