The equities market opened the week negative investors lost ₦40.7 billion as market capitalisation declined to ₦14.8trillion while year to date return worsened to 5.6 per cent.
The All-Share Index lost 0.3 percent due to sell-offs in MTNN (-0.4percent), BUA Cement (-1.5percent) and Flourmill (-4.5percent) to close at 28,337.49 points.
Activity level was mixed as volume traded fell 3.9 percent to 369.2m units while value traded rose 30.6percent to ₦5.1bn.
The most active stocks by volume were UBA (95.1m units), Guaranty (65.5m units) and Zenith (47.2m units) while Guaranty (₦1.9bn), Zenith (₦944.3m) and UBA (₦678.7m) led by value.
Sector performance was uninspiring as all indices our coverage lost save Oil & Gas index which gained 1.4percent due to buying interest in Eterna (+9.9percent ) and Seplat (+2.4 percent ).
The Insurance and Consumer Goods indices lost the most, down 1.8percent and 0.9percent respectively due to sell-offs in Mansard (-9.7percent) and AIICO (-3.6percent) as well as Flourmill (-4.5percent) and International Brewery (-9.1percent ).
Similarly, the Industrial Goods, AFR-ICT and Banking indices declined 0.5 percent, 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent respectively on the back of price depreciation in BUA Cement (-1.5 percent ), MTNN (-0. 4 percent ) Zenith (-0.3 percent).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth rose to 0.8x from the 0.6x recorded in the previous session as 13 stocks gained against 16 decliners.
