Stock market takes second haircut

Amidst tumbling global crude oil prices, Nigeria’s stock market suffered another round of freefall after trading closed in the red with 33 stocks depreciating in value at the close of trading yesterday.
The market had crashed by 2.41 per cent as its key index, the All Share Index, (ASI), hit a 31-month low to close at 25,647.21 as against opening figure of 25,177.28 points over fears Coronavirus induced oil price crash in the international market. The Brent Crude which is equivalent of Nigeria’s Bonny Light oil grade rose 5.68 per cent as it traded at $36.31 per barrel yesterday. This did not spur investors’ sentiment on the domestic bourse as its index fell 4.91 per cent – the highest decline in a decade- to close at 24,388.66 points.
Consequently, investors lost N656 billion as market capitalisation dropped to N12.709 trillion while the year-to-date (YTD) loss dropped to -9.1 per cent. However, activity level on the bourse surged as volume and value traded rose 220.3 and 130.5 per cent to 594.55 million units and N4.20 billion respectively, exchanged in 4,010 deals.
The Banking (-12.5 per cent) and AFR-ICT (-5.6 per cent) indices lost the most, following sell pressures in GT Bank (-9.9 per cent) and MTNN (-10.0 per cent). Similarly, the Consumer Goods and Insurance indices declined 4.4 and 2.9 per cent respectively, due to losses in Nigerian Breweries (-9.9 per cent) and Mansard (-9.3 per cent). Lastly, the Industrial Goods (-1.1 per cent) and Oil & Gas (-0.9 per cent) indices fell on the back of declines in CAP (-9.9 per cent) and Oando (-9.9 per cent) respectively.

On the price chart, 33 stocks declined while 3 others advanced. Dangote Flour topped the losers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at N9.90 per share, Fidelity Bank was next with 10 per cent to close at N1.62, Nascon fell by 10 per cent to close at N11.70, Stanbic lost 10 per cent to close at N28.35 while MTNN decreased by 10 per cent to close at N103.50.
Neimeth on the other hand, topped the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at 0.44 kobo per share. Honeywell rose by 3.45 per cent to close at 0.90 kobo while NEM garnered 1.16 per cent to close at N1.75. Reacting on the development, market analysts said the bearish sentiment  will continue to as oil prices struggle to trend upwards.
Analysts at Vetiva, said, “With oil prices trending lower, dampening investors’ sentiment, we expect weaker oil prices to continue to weigh on sentiment in the market space.”