By Peter Egwuatu

The Nigerian stock market suffered a major setback last week as all the performance indictors declined for the five consecutive trading days with investors losing not less than N594 billion. Capital market operators have attributed the decline in performance indicators to massive sale of shares in the Nigerian Exchange, NSE as market

capitalisation which represents the value of stocks traded on the exchange dropped from N9.796 trillion on Monday to close on Friday at N9.204 trillion.

In the same vein, stock market gauge, All Share Index dropped by 1,795.29 points, from N29,360.55 points it closed on Monday to 27,585.26 points on Friday. Analysis of trading of shares at the stock market on Friday showed that the Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 337.506 million shares exchanged for 3.628 billion.

Consumer Goods came next with 97.843 million shares traded for ¦ 2.029 billion, Conglomerates, Industrial Goods, Agriculture sectors followed in that order on the activity chart. Guaranty Trust Bank Plc,, UTC , Transcorp, ETI and Zenith Bank were the most active stocks by volume. Cadbury, Caverton, Okomuoil and Air Service emerged the highest price gainers on the chart, while Presco, Transcorp, Livestock, Guinness and UACN topped the losers chart.

Further review of the stock market in terms of activity on Friday showed that turnover recorded a solid 513,886 million shares valued at N7.07 billion ($34.60 million). There were cross deals in the names like; GT Bank, recording N1.94 billionn ($9.51 million), Nigerian Breweries, NB N1.66 billion ($8.14 million) followed by Dangote Cement: N798 million ($3.90 million ), ETI: N707 million ($3.46 million).

Others were Zenith Bank: N516 million ($2.52 million), WAPCO: N246 million ($1.20 million) and First Bank Nigeria Holdings, FBNH: N180 million ($879k).