Stocks down by N233bn after MSCI threat to remove NSE from index

Investment value dropped on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) by N233 billion at the end of trading yesterday, due to a threat by the index provider, MSCI, which said it could remove Nigeria from its frontier markets index after the central bank’s introduction of currency controls last year.
The market, which opened with N8.712 trillion, declined by 2.67 per cent to close at N8.479 trillion at the beginning of the week compared with the 0.16% depreciation recorded previously.
Meanwhile, investors traded 225.286 million shares valued at N750.228 million in 3,058 deals. At the end, Equity Assurance was the toast of investors with 44,982 million unit of shares accounted for N22,491,000.
Market turnover closed positive as volume moved up by 0.84% against a 15.60% decline recorded in the previous session. EQUITYASUR, FCMB and TRANSCORP were the most active to boost market turnover. NB and ZENITHBANK topped market value list.
NIG German topped on the losers chart with 9.7 per cent loss to close at N381 kobo per share.
According to Reuters, MSCI said late on Thursday that it was seeking feedback from investors on the ease of access to the Nigerian stock market, of which about $480 million of MSCI benchmarked money was invested.
The Nigerian stock market, which has the second-biggest weighting behind Kuwait on the MSCI frontier market index, has fallen for two days running after the MSCI announcement.