The Nigerian equity market extended its bearish trend yesterday for the third time since the beginning of the week with investors losing another N251.74bn.
The bearish run started on Tuesday, the first working day of the week after the Easter Holiday with the All Share Index (ASI) dropping to 104,518.14 points to the previous session’s 104,562.06 points.
On Wednesday it dipped further by 0.32% to settle at 104,181.32 points.
In all, market capitalization lost N24.8bn on Tuesday; 190.45bn on Wednesday and N251.74bn on Thursday.
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The extended losses bring the All-Share Index down by 0.43% to close at 103,736.08 points. Bearish sentiment in MTNN (-1.29%), GTCO (-6.49%), and ZENITHBANK (-1.82%) overturned the gains in DANGSUGAR (+6.26%), ETI (+6.12%) and NB (+0.17%) causing the drag in the market.
The year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 38.73%, while the market capitalization shed N251.74bn to close at N58.65trn.
Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled higher relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions up by 75.57%.
A total of 487.73m shares valued at N15.64bn were exchanged in 8,908 deals. ZENITHBANK (-1.82%) led the volume and value chart with 161.68m units traded in deals worth N7.03bn.
Market breadth closed negative at a 0.83-to-1 ratio with declining issues outnumbering the advancing ones.
CILEASING (-9.79%) topped twenty-four (24) others on the laggard’s table while MORISON (+9.84%) led twenty-one (21) others on the leader’s log.