High Inflation Rate Pushes Local Market Down By 0.07%

The Nigeria Exchange (NGX) Limited depreciated by 0.07% on Monday following the announcement that the country’s inflation surged to 19.64% – the highest in 17 years.

The inflation numbers triggered profit-taking in the market yesterday, causing Nigerian stocks to remain in the red territory at the close of transactions.

The prices of food and services in the country have been on the high side for months and yesterday, the consumer goods sector was mainly responsible for the downfall of the stock exchange.

The counter lost 0.33 per cent and erased the gains posted by the other sectors. The industrial goods space grew by 0.17 per cent, the banking index rose by 0.15 per cent, the energy sector increased by 0.03 per cent, while the insurance counter closed flat.

At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) went down by 34.64 points to 49,629.43 points from 49,664.07 points, while the market capitalisation depreciated by N18 billion to N26.769 trillion from N26.787 trillion.

A total of 17 stocks finished on the losers’ log on the first trading session of the week, while 12 stocks were on the gainers’ table.

Presco recorded the biggest fall as it declined by 9.97 per cent to N142.60. Multiverse lost 7.79 per cent to trade at N2.25, Ikeja Hotel depreciated by 5.51 per cent to N1.20, Dangote Sugar fell by 4.19 per cent to N16.00, while Jaiz Bank decreased by 3.30 per cent to sell for 88 Kobo.

On the other side, Neimeth led the gainers’ group with a price appreciation of 9.29 per cent to trade at N1.53, Unity Bank improved by 4.65 per cent to 45 Kobo, FCMB gained 4.18 per cent to quote at N3.49, Zenith Bank grew by 2.12 per cent to N21.70, while Transcorp increased by 0.93 per cent to N1.08.

The activity level was low during the session as 210.8 million shares worth N2.2 billion were traded in 4,122 deals compared with the 759.3 million shares worth N5.3 billion traded in 4,076 deals at the earlier trading day, indicating a decline in the trading volume and value by 71.90 per cent and 58.78 per cent respectively and an increase in the number of deals by 1.13 per cent.

The most traded stock for the day was eTranzact, which sold 52.6 million units valued at N119.8 million and was trailed by FBN Holdings, which traded 23.1 million units worth N249.8 million. UBA exchanged 21.9 million equities worth N153.5 million, GTCO transacted 15.5 million stocks for N315.9 million, while Transcorp traded 12.7 million stocks for N13.7 million.