By Dipo Olowookere

Profit-taking in the shares of MTN Nigeria and others on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) plunged the market into a 0.16 percent loss on Monday, September 30, 2019. The actions of the investors ensured that the last trading day of the month closed bearish after going up in the two previous sessions.

Business Post reports that the market was impacted yesterday by the poor performance of MTN Nigeria, which at a point went down to N125 per unit at the session, but managed to close at N130.50 per share against N136 per share it traded last Friday, losing N5.50 on Monday.

However, the market breadth ended flat at the trading session with 18 price gainers and 18 price losers.

Other companies on the top five decliners’ chart were Unilever, which went down by N2.30 to settle at N26.70 per unit, Seplat, which fell by N1.60 to close at N555 per share, Ecobank, which declined by 85 kobo to finish at N8.05 per share, and NASCON, which depreciated by 30 kobo to close at N13.40 per share.

On the flip side, Nestle Nigeria was the day’s highest price gainer, going up by N49.90 to settle at N1394.90 per unit, while Total Nigeria followed with a price appreciation of N9.50 to close at N129.50 per share.

CAP gained N2.30 to trade at N25.55 per unit, GTBank rose by N1.60 to finish at N29.20 per share, while Dangote Cement appreciated by 80 to end at N151.50 per share.

At the session, investors traded 194.8 million shares worth N3.1 billion in 2,910 deals compared with the 187.3 million units valued at N2.1 billion transacted the previous trading day in 2,942 deals.

This indicated that the volume of the transactions increased by 4.01 percent, while the value rose by 43.97 percent, with the number of deals executed going down by 1.09 percent.

The most active stock at the market yesterday was GTBank, with a total turnover of 58.5 million units sold for N1.6 billion, while Access Bank trailed with an exchange of 50.4 million shares worth N386 million.

FBN Holdings traded 21.2 million equities valued at N115.2 million, FCMB exchanged 16.8 million shares worth N27.6 million, while Transcorp transacted 7.2 million stocks valued at N7.3 million.

Business Post reports that the five key sectors on the NSE closed in the green territory on Monday, with the insurance sector recording the highest gain of 1.85 percent.

The banking index followed with 1.56 percent growth, the consumer goods industry appreciated by 1.26 percent, the industrial goods index rose by 0.91 percent, while the energy sector improved by 0.35 percent.

But the main market indicators, the All-Share Index (ASI) and market capitalization depreciated by 44.48 points and N21.7 billion apiece to settle at 27,630.56 points and N13.450 trillion respectively.

https://businesspost.ng/2019/10/01/market-loses-n22bn-as-investors-selloff-shares-of-mtn-17-others/