Equities opens week with N153bn loss

Trading in the flour of the Nigeria Exchange resumed for the week with bearish sentiments, as market capitalization lost N153 billion to close at N21.471 trillion due to profit-taking in MTNN and Nestle.

Also, the All-Share Index dipped 293.48 points or 0.71 percent to close at 41,144.67 against 41,438.15 posted on Friday.

Accordingly, the month-to-date and year-to-date returns settled at 2.3 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

The market negative performance was driven by price depreciation in large and medium capitalized stocks which are; Nestle, MTN Nigeria Communications (MTNN), FBN Holdings (FBNH), May and Baker, and NPF Microfinance Bank.

Consequently, the market breadth closed negative with 21 losers as against 19 gainers.

In the same vein, the total volume of shares traded dipped by 53.53 percent with an exchange of 338.72 million shares valued at N4.06 billion exchanged in 5,866 deals.