Stock Market Watch: ASI Resumes Losses, Sheds 11 Points

The Nigerian Stock Exchange retreated after two consecutive days of marginal gains. The ASI recorded a marginal loss of 11 points to close at 19,849.31.

The banking sub-sector was led by Stanbic IBTC as the stock consolidated on yesterday’s gain and bagged an appreciation of 4.9% to its share price.

GTBank and Sterling were the only other tickers to record appreciation, bagging 1.09% and 2.06% respectively.

Leading the bearish participants were Diamond and UBA, shedding 4.98% and 4.82% apiece. First Bank also shed a significant 305 points, even as Skye and Access shed 290 and 22 points apiece.

Activity in the Insurance sub-sector was fair and a mixture of positive and negative. GTAssurance led the bulls, recording a gain of 417 points, Goldlink was up 185 points and Custodian and Allied took 48 points.

Recording losses were Law Union and Rock, Aiico and Prestige as they lost 385, 196 and 200 points respectively.

The downstream subsector of the Oil and Gas sector was fully bearish as Oando and Eterna lost 4.98% and 4.91% respectively, even as all other counters remained unchanged.

The breweries sub-sector of the Consumer Goods sector was led by Nigerian Breweries that picked up 41 points even as Jos International shed 465 points.

Te Food and Beverages sub-sector was dominated by the bears today. Dangote Sugar led the bearis charge, dropping 495 points, even as fellow Dangote subsidiaries, Nascon and Dangote Flour shed 407 and 176 points respectively.

Honeywell, Cadbury and 7Up were also down in trading today.

Across the Infrastructure sector, construction giant Julius Berger was down 499 points,. Cement manufacturers, Dangote Cement and Lafarge Wapco were up 16 and 306 points each, even as Ashaka and CCNN declined 284, and 304 points respectively.

Over 269 million shares valued at over N 1.5 billion were traded today.