Stocks dip by 0.47% as market rout continues

Nigeria’s equities market closed further south on Wednesday by 0.47 percent as investors sold insurance and banking stocks despite record buy interest in consumer goods stocks.

Week-to-date (WtD), the market has decreased by 1.07 percent following three consecutive days of negative closes.

The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) closed lower to 64,625.28 points while equities market capitalisation decreased to N35.369trillion. The market’s year-to-date (YtD) postive return lowered to 26.10 percent.

GTCO, Universal Insurance, UBA, Sterling Financial Holding Company and Transcorp were actively traded stocks. In 6,213 deals, investors exchanged 291,714,158 shares worth N7.43billion.

Investors sold mostly stocks like NEM Insurance, Sunu Assurances, Guinea Insurance and Cornerstone Insurance.

NEM dropped from N6 to N5.40, losing 60kobo or 10 percent. Sunu Assurances also dropped, from 94kobo to 86kobo, losing 8kobo or 8.51percent. Cornerstone was down from N1.41 to N1.31, losing 10kobo or 7.09 percent.

Eterna led the market’s advancers after its share price rose from N16 to N17.60, up by N1.60 or 10 percent.

CWG increased from N3.02 to N3.28, up 26kobo or 8.61percent. FTNCocoa increased from N2.01 to N2.15, up by 14kobo or 6.97percent.

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Livestock Feeds rose from N1.80 to N1.90, adding 10kobo or 5.56 percent, while Vitafoam increased from N20.90 to N21.90, up N1 or 4.78 percent.

This negative close on Wednesday came even as MTN Nigeria disclosed on Wednesday its plans to issue N100billion Series 6 and 7 Commercial Paper (CP) notes under its Commercial Paper issuance programme.

The CP issuance is part of the company’s strategy to diversify its financing options with the funds being deployed towards short term working capital and funding requirements.