Activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) opened for the week on Monday with a marginal drop of 0.01 per cent.
Speficially, the All-Share Index lost 1.18 points or 0.01 per cent to close at 22,920.41 from the 22,921.59 achieved on Friday.
In the same vein, the market capitalisation dropped by one billion naira or 0.01 per cent to close at N11.945 trillion against N11.946 trillion posted on Friday.
The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks among which are Guinness Nigeria, Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank, PZ Cussons Nigeria and Union Bank of Nigeria.
Analysts at GTI Securities Limited said that “after seven consecutive trading sessions of gaining streak despite Covid-19 lockdown, we expect some investors to exit their position in the early days of this week despite attractive valuation of many equities.”
Market breadth closed negative with 14 price gainers in contrast with 16 losers.
Guinness Nigeria led the price losers’ chart in percentage terms, dropping by 9.38 per cent to close at N20.30 per share.
PZ Cussons followed with a loss of 9.09 per cent to close at N4, while Livestock Feeds lost 7.14 to close at 65k per share.
Champion Breweries declined by 6.25 per cent to close at 90k, while Zenith Bank shed 5.67 per cent to close at N14.15 per share.
Conversely, Julius Berger and Linkage Assurance topped the price gainers’ chart in percentage terms, gaining 10 per cent each to close at N26.95 and 55k per share, respectively.
BUA Cement came second with a gain 8.48 per cent to close at N34.55 per share.
NASCON Allied Industries improved by 7.49 per cent to close at N10.05, while Nigerian Breweries appreciated by 6.65 per cent to close at N34.50, per share.
Total volume of shares transacted, however, rose by 46.15 per cent as investors exchanged 345.44 million shares worth N4.21 billion in 4,930 deals.
This was against the turnover of 231.61 million shares valued at N2.61 billion exchanged in 4,521 deals on Friday.
Transactions in the shares of FBN Holdings topped the activity chart with 115.32 million shares worth N538.15 million.
Guaranty Trust Bank followed with 51.79 million shares valued at N1.06 billion, while Transcorp traded 33.38 million shares worth N23.10 million.
Zenith Bank sold 26.03 million shares valued at N376.52 million, while United Bank for Africa transacted 20.34 million shares worth N122.68 million.nan