Stocks This Week: Profit-taking weakens market value by N266 billion

The Nigerian stock market saw limited trading sessions this week on account of a public holiday on Monday.

Gains were reported Wednesday through Friday but they are a mere trifle when set beside the steep loss of Tuesday, which set the week up for a fall of N266 billion.

All but the insurance and the oil & gas indexes have posted positive returns this year of the five sector indexes tracked by the Nigerian Exchange. While the insurance index is up 6.03 per cent, the oil and gas index has gained 38.91 per cent so far this year.

All the key market performance indicators declined this week. Market breadth was positive as 38 gainers were reported against 25 laggards.

The all-share index and market capitalisation simultaneously dropped by 1.30 per cent, the former closing at 38,648.91 points and the latter at N20.143 trillion.

Trade volume of 981.147 million shares estimated at N10.384 billion was recorded in 15,001 deals, relative to the 1.058 billion shares worth N12.831 billion that were traded in 17,854 deals the week before.

The financial services industry led the activity chart, with 695.803 million shares valued at N5.178 billion and traded in 8,616 deals. It added 70.92 per cent and 49.86 per cent to the total equity volume and value respectively.

The consumer goods sector came next, trading 75.879 million shares estimated at N1.227 billion in 2,263 deals. The conglomerates sector was third, trading 67.430 million shares priced at N367.306 million in 612 deals.

Regarding index movement, all indices rose except the NSE ASI, NSE Main Board, NSE MERI and NSE Industrial Goods, which dipped 1.30 per cent, 3.26 per cent, 1.33 per cent and 0.05 per cent respectively. The NSE Growth and NSE ASeM indices closed flat.