By Peter Egwuatu

The equities market on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE on Tuesday extended its previous day losses, shedding 0.53 points to settle at 31,178.71 owing to profit taking by investors.

Nigerian Stock Exchange NSE

The market decline were impacted owing to price losses recorded by Zenith Bank (-2.3 percent), Nigerian Breweries (-2.4 percent) and Guaranty Trust Bank (-1.3 percent).

Consequently, market capitalisation fell by N61.7billion to close at N11.6trillion while Year to Date YtD loss worsened to -0.8 percent. However, activity level improved as total volume and value traded increased 61.6 percent and 3.7 percent to 355.0million units and N1.9billion respectively.

Stock market extends losses as NSE Index down by 1.0%

The top traded stocks by volume were CHI Plc (100.4million units), UBA (48.8million units) and Sterling Bank (30.2million units) while UBA (N354.7million), Zenith Bank (N343.3million) and GTBank (N241.7million) were the top traded by value.

Performance across sectors was negative as none of the five indices posted appreciated. The Banking index shed the most, down 3.7 percent on account of selloffs in Zenith Bank (-2.3 percent), GTBank (-1.3 percent) and Access Bank (-4.7 percent). This was trailed by the Consumer Goods and Insurance indices which were down 0.6 percent  and 0.2 percent respectively, due to losses in Nigerian Breweries (-2.4 percent), Dangote Sugar (-1.4 percent) and Linkage Assurance  (-9.7 percent ). The Oil & Gas index posted was flat for the day.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth weakened as 14 stocks advanced against 29 decliners. The top performing stocks were RED Star Express (+10.0 percent), UAC-PROP (+9.6 percent) and WAPIC Insurance  (+7.7 percent ) while Neimeth  Pharmaceuticals (-10.0 percent), Academy Press  (-10.0 percent ) and Linkage Assurance (-9.7 percent ) led laggards.