The Nigerian stock market opened the week on a negative note as renewed sell pressure dragged the All-Share Index down by 1.26 per cent, closing at 145,159.77 points on Monday. The downtrend wiped out a fresh N1.17tn from investors’ portfolios, pulling market capitalisation lower to N92.3tn and signalling a shaky start to the trading week.
Market data shows that the downturn was largely driven by heavy profit-taking in heavyweight Dangote Cement, which plunged 10 per cent—the maximum allowable daily decline. Major tier-1 banks also took a hit, with Zenith Bank falling by 1.64 per cent, Access Holdings sliding 3.26 per cent, and FBN Holdings dropping 2.76 per cent. Despite the overall bearish close, market breadth surprisingly remained positive, with 28 gainers edging out 24 losers. Sovereign Insurance emerged as the day’s top performer with a 9.97 per cent gain, while Dangote Cement and Enamelware led the losers, both down 10 per cent.
Trading activity cooled significantly from Friday’s unusually high turnover driven by off-market deals in Cornerstone Insurance. Total volume traded plummeted by 92.1 per cent to 388.2 million units, while value traded fell 26.3 per cent to N31.1bn. Tantalizer led activity by volume with 57.1 million units after announcing a five-year multi-million-dollar export deal with a U.S. firm, while Aradel Holdings dominated by value with N21.5bn worth of trades, representing 69 per cent of total value.
Sectoral performance was mixed but largely bearish. The Industrial Goods Index suffered the steepest decline at 4.48 per cent due to weakness in Dangote Cement. The Oil & Gas Index fell 1.18 per cent, driven by losses in Oando and Aradel, while the Banking Index shed 1.01 per cent. The Consumer Goods Index dipped slightly by 0.02 per cent. The Insurance Index, however, managed a modest 0.07 per cent rise, supported by gains in Sovereign Insurance.
Analysts at Cowry Asset Management attributed Monday’s market decline to intensified profit-taking, noting that the sharp drop in market capitalisation occurred despite the listing of 1.96 billion new Chams Holding shares through private placement. Meanwhile, fresh inflation figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed continued deceleration, with headline inflation easing to 16.1 per cent in October from 18.0 per cent in September. However, month-on-month inflation rose slightly to 0.9 per cent, suggesting that price pressures remain despite the broader easing trend.
source: punch