Nigerian equities sustain downtrend on losses in oil and gas, consumer, banking counters
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
Nigerian equities recorded a fourth consecutive downtrend, Tuesday as three major sectoral indexes closed lower.
The oil and gas index recorded the highest loss of 0.79 percent as Mobil and Oando fell 4.70 and 1.25 percent respectively. The consumer goods index was next with a depreciation of 0.47 percent (due to a share price decline in Honeywell Flour Mills, Dangote Sugar and Flour Mills of Nigeria), while the banking index fell 0.39 percent following a 1.40 and 0.36 percent dip in FBN holdings and Zenith bank share prices.
On the other hand the insurance and industrial indexes grew 1.26 and 0.03 percent respectively following growth recorded in AIICO Insurance.
Consequently, the bourse’s benchmark index, NSEASI shed 0.43 percent to close at 40,249.29 points. Market capitalisation fell N63.7 billion to close at N14.579 trillion as market breadth closed negative with 19 gainers against 34 losers
Leading the gainers chart, Ikeja Hotel sustained a second day rally following the lift of technical suspension placed on it two years ago. The stock added 9.68 percent to close at N2.04 per share. It was followed by Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN), which added 5 percent to close at N1.20 per share while Okomu Oil appreciated 4.97 percent to close at N82.30 per share.
Eterna Plc. led the day’s laggards with a decline of 8.55 percent to close at N6.20 per share, while Honeywell flourmills and Initiates Plc emerged next on the losers chart with a 5 percent decline each to close at N2.47 and 76 kobo per share respectively.
Investors traded a total of 281.3 million shares in 4,304 deals. The shares were valued at N4.1 billion. Top traded stocks for the day include Ikeja Hotel, Fidson and Zenith Bank. These stocks moved 34.6 million units, 32.4 million units and 26.5 million units at N70.5 million, N180.2 million and N740.9 million respectively.