Stock market sees first dip after Emefiele’s suspension

Nigeria’s equities market on Thursday decreased by 1.32 percent, its first decline since the suspension of Godwin Emefiele as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Investors sold stocks like Access Corporation which dropped most by N1.45 or 9.24percent, from N15.70 to N14.25. Cornerstone Insurance also made the top laggards list, after its share price lowered from N1.13 to N1.02, down by 11kobo or 9.73 percent.

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Contrary to earlier expectations, investors could not continue to take strategic positions in the equities market, but chose to take profit after recent rally. Nigeria had on Wednesday officially floated its local currency after years of sticking with a hard peg that scared investors and drained the greenback from the economy.

The negative close at the Lagos bourse on Thursday pushed lower the market’s record year-to-date (YtD) postive return to 15.50 percent. UBA, Access Corporation, Fidelity Bank, GTCO and Sterling Bank were actively traded stocks.

The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and equities Market Capitalisation decreased from preceding day’s high of 59,985.10 points and N32.662trillion respectively to 59,195.21 points and N32.232trillion. In 12,611 deals, investors exchanged 1,170,151,738 units valued at N15.359billion.