The Nigerian equities market maintained a bearish outing on Monday, having opened for the week with a loss of 0.45 per cent.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the bearish trend was on the back of losses witnessed in highly capitalised equities.
NAN reports that the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) will close for June 4 and 5 in line with public holidays declared by the Federal Government to mark Eid-el-Fitri celebration.
Speficially, the All Share Index (ASI) shed 141.08 points, representing a dip of 0.45 per cent to close at 30,928.29 against 31,069.37 on Friday.
Similarly, the market capitalisation shed N62 billion to close at N13.622 trillion compared with N13.684 trillion achieved on Friday.
Market performance was influenced by price depreciation in medium and large capitalised stocks, among which are, Seplat Petroleum Development Company (Seplat), Julius Berger and NASCON, among others.
Analysts at Afrinvest Limited said that “In line with our expectation, we experienced some sell-offs in yesterday’s trading session.
“Our outlook remains bearish in the near term, though we do not rule out the possibility of bargain hunting in fundamentally sound stocks.”
Market breadth was negative with 15 gainers against 28 losers.
Champion Breweries recorded the highest price gain of 9.90 per cent to close at N1.11.
It was followed by University Press with a gain of 9.44 per cent, to close at N1.97, while Academy Press rose by eight per cent to close at 27k per share.
Sterling Bank and Jaiz Bank appreciated by 4.35 per cent each to close at N2.40 and 48k, per share respectively.
On the other hand, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria led the losers’ chart dropping by 10 per cent, to close at N7.65 per share.
ETI followed with a decline of 9.87 per cent to close at N10.05, while Julius Berger dipped 9.84 per cent to close at N19.70 per share.
Oando following its battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission declined by 9.52 per cent to close at N3.80, while Vitafoam was down by 9.41 per cent, to close at N3.85, per share.
Meanwhile, the total volume traded went up by 15.5 per cent to 246.09 million shares valued at N2.82 billion, and exchanged in 3,850 deals.
This was in contrast with a total of 212.94 million shares worth N2.73 billion traded in 3,737 deals on Friday.
FCMB Group traded with 70.56 million shares valued at N112.98 million.
Guaranty Trust Bank followed with an exchange of 33.99 million shares worth N1.07 billion, while Oando traded 27.15 million shares valued at N103.27 billion.
UACN sold 24.33 million shares worth N157.16 million, while Zenith Bank transacted 8.84 million shares worth N178.54 million.
