Investors in the Nigerian stock market have lost over N428.7 billion in three days’ trading as the market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE further declined yesterday by 0.40 per cent.

The market capitalisation represents the total value of shares traded on the exchange. The NSE market capitalisation, which opened at N10.250 trillion on Monday dropped by N428.768 billion to close yesterday at N9.822 trillion.

According to Vanguard, the capital market operators stated that the bearish sentiments continued to dominate equities trading for the three days trading on the floor of NSE as another stock market performance indicator, the All Share Index , ASI fell by 0.40 per cent to close at 29, 434.46, making it three days of losses in a row. The Banking stocks index declined by 2.28 per cent as the sub sector continued to come under selling pressure. The Consumer Goods index followed as it shed 0.93 per cent and closed the day lower. Meanwhile, the Industrial index appreciated by 0.88 per cent.

The losses recorded by ET1, Fidelity Bank , Zenith Bank, Access Bank, First Bank Nigeria Holding, FBHN, Diamond Bank, and GTBank contributed significantly to drag down the Banking sub sector.

Specifically, ETI dropped by 4.99 per cent to close at N17.15, followed by Fidelity Bank which dropped by 4.90 per cent to close at N1.36. Zenith Bank declined by 4.51 per cent to close at, N17.15 followed by Access Bank which nosedived by 3.34 per cent to close at N6.36. FBNH shed 1.74 per cent to close at N7.90 followed by Diamond Bank which dropped by 1.00 per cent to close at N3.95 and GTBank declined by 0.81 per cent to close at N22.01.

The poor performance of the Consumer Goods was attributed to the losses recorded by Dangote Flour which declined by 4.76 per cent to close at N3.20, followed by Unilever which declined by 3.86 to close at N33.65.

Nestle dropped by 2.44 per cent to close at N800.00 followed by NASCON which dropped by 2.03 per cent to close at N6.27 and PZ Industries shed 1.60 per cent to close at N26.50.

Meanwhile, gains recorded by Dangote Cement propelled by Industrial sub sector as it garnered 1.87 per cent to close at N152.80. Operators opined that buyers were obviously absent from the market as the value traded amounted to an uninteresting N1.62 billion ($8.17 million). The main highlights of yesterday’s proceedings were the cross deals consummated on GT Bank: N561 million ($2.83 million) and some flows recorded in Nigerian Breweries worth N188 million. Nestle recorded N161 million and Zenith Bank N108 million.

(Vanguard)