On Tuesday, the Nigerian equities market experienced a downturn, erasing the progress made during the previous session as investors saw N599 billion wiped off their portfolios. This decline broke a recent period of market growth.
Heavy selling pressure on equities like Multiverse Mining, Livingtrust Mortgage Bank, Mc Nicholas, Thomas Wyatt Nigeria, and Eterna contributed to the negative outcome, alongside 35 other declining stocks. The market capitalisation slipped by 0.38 per cent, dropping from an opening of N158.614 trillion to N158.015 trillion. Correspondingly, the All-Share Index fell by 927.70 points, or 0.38 per cent, to reach 244,802.83, which pushed the Year-To-Date return down to 57.32 per cent. Market breadth ended negatively with 40 companies losing value compared to 13 that gained.
Multiverse Mining and Livingtrust Mortgage Bank suffered the steepest losses, each falling by 10 per cent to close at N22.95 and N3.42 respectively. Other notable decliners included Mc Nicholas at N5.45, Thomas Wyatt Nigeria at N3.56, and Eterna at N33 per share. Conversely, gainers were led by AVA Capital, which rose 9.94 per cent to N9.95, followed by Nigeria Real Estate Investment Trust at N113 and Livestock Feeds at N8.65.
Trading activity saw an uptick, with the total volume of shares exchanged increasing by 69.25 per cent to 1.56 billion units valued at N28.73 billion across 54,160 deals. Japaul Gold was the most traded stock by volume, while MTN Nigeria dominated the total value of trades at N3.25 billion.
