Stock Market Investors Lose N113.1bn Over Nationwide Protest

Investors on the Nigeria Stock Exchange lost N113.1bn due to tension across the country accelerated by Tuesday’s killing of protesters in Lagos.

The decline consumed the previous increase recorded on Tuesday where All-Share Index improved to 28,665.82 points, which led to a N3.5bn growth in market capitalisation.

The slump in the NSE key index to 28,449.45 points dragged the market capitalisation down to N14.87trn.

Sell pressures dominated trades particularly from MTN Nigeria Plc at 1.4 per cent, Guiness Nigeria by 5.9 per cent and ARDOVA Plc by 6.3 per cent.

Despite the slump, activity level improved against the previous day as volume and value traded rose by 9.8 per cent and 44.3 per cent to 326.6 million units and N4.2bn respectively.

The Banking index witnessed the highest loss by 1.7 per cent following losses in Guaranty Trust Bank by 1.3 per cent and Zenith Bank by 1.2 per cent.

The Information Communications and Oil and Gas indices fell 1.1 per cent and 0.3 per sent respectively, due to sell pressures in MTN at 1.4 per cent and ARDOVA at 10 per cent.

The Consumer and Industrial Goods indices also dropped by 0.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively, due to profit-taking in Guinness at 5.9 per cent and WAPCO at 4.4 per cent.

The Insurance index recorded the only gainer as it appreciated 0.6 per cent due to share price increase in WAPIC Insurance which rose 10 per cent.