The losses on the Nigerian bourse extended into the fifth consecutive trading session on Tuesday as the All Share Index declined by 1.02 percent, dragging the year-to-date return to -0.4 percent.
The report by Nigeria’s Punch newspaper on Wednesday said that market capitalisation of equities listed on the floor of the NSE dropped from N11.998tn on Tuesday last week to N11.978tn on Wednesday and N11.937tn on Thursday.
On Friday, the market capitalisation dropped further to N11.905tn.
According to the report, the bearish sentiment persisted as the market opened this week on a bearish note, recording a loss of N108bn on Monday and a further N120bn on Tuesday to close at N11.677tn.
The market recorded positive performance in the first 24 minutes of trading on Tuesday, after which it started to decline at 10:43 am.
The biggest decline for the day was recorded at 12:37 pm, shedding 102.6 basis points in two minutes.
At 2:15 pm, the market hit its lowest point during the day at 31,269.27bps, after which it began to rise, gaining 44.09bps to close at 31,313bps.
The banking sector recorded the biggest loss, down by 2.26 percent on the back of major sell-offs witnessed in Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc.
The consumer goods sector was the second biggest loser for the day as it shed 1.30 percent.
The insurance and oil and gas sectors saw respective declines of 0.51 percent and 0.37 percent due to losses recorded in 11 Plc, Linkage Assurance Plc and Wapic Insurance Plc.
The industrial goods sector emerged the lone gainer for the day, with a gain of 0.24 per cent buoyed by gains in Lafarge Africa Plc.
However, activity level improved as volume and value traded advanced by 71 percent and 22.7 percent to 219.369 million units and N2.927bn, respectively.
However, analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited said: “Despite the consecutive negative performance recorded, we expect investor bargain hunting to drive market performance over the near term.” ($1-N305)