MTN, Flour Mills, and Other Companies Reduce NGX Market Cap by N67 Billion

The Nigerian Exchange Limited sustained bearish sentiments as the market responded to the Supreme Court’s judgment on the 2023 general elections cases, resulting in a N67 billion reduction in its market capitalization. This marked the second consecutive day of negative trading on the local bourse.

The decline in share values of several key companies including MTN Nigeria (-0.40 per cent), Flour Mills (-3.23 per cent), Stanbic IBTC (3.21), Computer Warehouse Group (-9.94 per cent), Fidelity Bank (-1.82 per cent), and others contributed to the dip in the market cap.

The Supreme Court’s affirmation of President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the February 2023 election further influenced the market sentiment. The All-Share index declined by -0.18 per cent, closing the day at 67,084.95 points, with the market cap settling at N36.856 trillion.

Market Breadth, which measures investors’ sentiments, recorded a negative ratio of 0.41x compared to the previous 1.28x, with 29 stocks depreciating against 12 gainers. The transaction volume decreased from 329.66 million to 267.65 million units of shares, valued at N5.1 billion, traded in 5,205 deals. A total of 117 stocks were traded during the day’s session.

Among the sectors, the Banking and Insurance indexes faced declines of 0.33 per cent and 1.82 per cent, respectively, driven by sell-offs in Stanbic, Prestige, Cornerstone Insurance, GTCO, and Zenith Bank. However, the Consumer Goods sector grew by 0.12 per cent due to Nestle and Transcorp, while the Industrial Goods and Oil & Gas sectors showed a muted performance.

At the close of Thursday trading, some of the top gainers included McNichols, whose shares appreciated by 8.93 per cent to close at N0.61, Oando gained 4.07 per cent to close at N8.95, UAC Nigeria’s shares increased by 6.09 per cent to close at N12.20, Chams gained 3.65 per cent to close at N1.99, Nestle gained 2.94 per cent to close at N1,050, and Transcorp gained 2.75 per cent to close at N6.35 per unit.

The volume and value drivers of the day’s trading were led primarily by stocks of Fidelity, Chams, Nestle, AccessCorp, UBA, and Stanbic.