The Nigerian Stock market dropped sharply today as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced a painful hangover from Monday’s volatility in oil markets.
The psychological shock of seeing oil prices, the world’s most important commodity for the last 100 years, plunge sent shivers down investors’ spines.
A number of bellwether banking and Industrial stocks fell in today’s trading session to close the All share Index / Market Capitalization at 22.629.92 index points and N11.793 trillion respectively, as investors lost N151.39 billion.
Market activity also closed lower compared to the previous trading session, as total volume and value declined by 27.53% and 44.74% to print at 250.34 million units and N2.325 billion respectively.
(READ MORE: Bears tear Crude oil futures into shreds as Brent slumps more than 20%)
FBN Holdings (-1.16%) was the most actively traded stock with 71.06million units of shares worth N299million, followed by Zenith Bank with 52.20 million units of trades valued at N695million.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was negative as 27 tickers declined, relative to four gainers.
On sectoral breakdown, bearish sentiments characterized the sectors. Sell-offs in tier one banking stocks like GUARANTY, ZENITHBANK, UBA and FIDELITYBK, placed the Lender’s index as the worst performer, falling by 5.75%. The Insurance and Oil & Gas indices trailed to slump by -1.45% and -1.25% respectively, on price decline in CORNERST (-8.47%), WAPIC (-3.70%) and OANDO (-10.00%).
Finally, the NSE Industrial and Consumer Goods Indices followed suit, shedding 0.88%, and 0.10% as WAPCO and CHAMPION BREW suffered drops of 9.21% and 10.00% price depreciation.
(READ MORE: Nigeria’s bonny light crude avoids price crash)
Top gainers
OMOMORBNK up 9.09% to close at N0.6; NPFMCRFBK up 8.70% to close at N1.25; LASACO up 4.17% to close at N0.25; LEARNAFRCA up 2.11% to close at N0.97, and SOVRENINS flat 0.00% to close at N0.2.
Top losers
WAPCO down 9.21% to close at N10.35; GUARANTY down 7.79% to close at N18.35; ZENITH BANK down 7.77% to close at N13.05; JBERGER down -4.27% to close at N25.8, and SEPLAT down 0.12% to close at N494.4.
