NSE All-Share Index bows to profit booking, down by 0.60%

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened trading for the week on Monday with a loss of 0.60 per cent, amid profit taking as predicted by some market analysts.

Speficially, the All Share Index shed 160.59 or 0.60 per cent to close at 26,691.09 compared with 26,851.68 achieved on Friday.

Similarly, the market capitalisation which opened at N13.071 trillion shed lost N188 billion to close at N12.883 trillion.

The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which are; Okomu Oil, Access Bank, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Caverton Offshore Support Group.

Commenting on the market performance, analysts at United Capital said “this week, we expect investors to continue to lock in gains in stocks with strong fundamentals, as the system remains awash with liquidity.”

Also, analysts at Imperial Asset Managers expect “more liquidity inflows into the equity market as investors continue to search for alternative asset to deploy idle fund”.

They said that traders were expected to take marginal profit witnessed last week, noting that buying interest remained strong in most listed equities irrespective of the NSE-ASI loss.

However, market breadth closed positive, with 16 gainers in contrast with14 losers.

Wema Bank led the losers’ chart in percentage terms with a loss of 7.89 per cent, to close at 70k per share.

FCMB Group came second with a decline of 7.50 per cent to close at N1.85, while Caverton Offshore lost 7.41 per cent to close at N2.50 per share.

Access Bank and ETI lost 6.67 per cent each, to close at N9.80 and N7.00, respectively, while Okomu Oil shed 5.57 per cent to close at N50 per share.

Conversely, Neimeth recorded the highest price gain in percentage terms with a gain of 10 per cent to close at 44k per share.

Jaiz Bank followed with a gain of 9.86 per cent to close at 78k, while Ikeja Hotel increased by 9.47 per cent to close at N1.04 per share.

Custodian Investment inched 9.09 per cent to close at N6, while Courteville appreciated by 8.70 per cent to close at 25k per share.

Also, the volume of shares traded closed lower as investors bought and sold 307.96 million shares worth N2.54 billion in 4,609 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 469.99 million shares valued at N5.59 billion transacted in 5,594 deals on Friday.

Transactions in the shares of UACN topped the activity chart with 102.55 million shares valued at N636.15 million.

Zenith Bank followed with 29.44 million shares worth N555.84 million, while UBA traded 20.81 million shares worth N147.44 million.

Access Bank sold 20.24 million shares valued at N195.62 million, while FBN Holdings transacted 14.67 million shares worth N96.65 million.