Conoil, Unilever, others cause market to see first dip this week

Nigeria’s equities market on Thursday recorded its first decline this week, no thanks to investors who took profit on the shares of Conoil, Unilever, PZ Cussons, Eterna and others.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday after the two-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, the last under President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, raised its benchmark interest rate also known as the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 50basis points to 18.5percent.

The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and equities market capitalisation decreased from preceding day’s high of 52,927.60 points and N28.819trillion to
52,821.64 points and N28.761trillion.

While the NGX ASI decreased by 0.20 percent, the value of listed stocks on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) decreased by N58billion.

The market’s positive return year-to-date (YtD) decreased to +3.06 percent. Conoil topped the league of laggards after its share price moved down from N48.40 to N43.60, losing N4.80 or 9.92percent.

Read also: Stock market down by 0.05% in week ended May 19

Unilever Nigeria also dropped from a high of N15.70 to N14.40, losing N1.30 or 8.28percent. Eterna was down from N7.25 to N6.80, losing 45kobo or 6.21percent. PZ was down from N18 to N16.90, down by N1.10 or 6.11percent.

UBA, Access Corporation, Zenith Bank, GTCO and Geregu were top-5 traded stocks on Thursday. In 5,879 deals, investors exchanged 377,136,295 shares valued at N9.178billion.