Two-day profit-taking drags NGX down by N894bn
The Nigerian equities market lost N894bn in two days as aggressive profit-taking at the end of September hit heavyweight banking and telecom stocks. Read More: https://punchng.com/two-day-profit-taking-drags-ngx-down-by-n894bn/
The Nigerian equities market experienced a pronounced bearish trend in the final trading session of September, with a notable two-day profit-taking session causing a decline of N894.36 billion in total investor wealth. Initially, the All-Share Index dropped by 0.29 per cent on Tuesday, resulting in a loss of N468.63 billion in equity valuation.
This downward momentum continued into Wednesday, with the benchmark index sliding by an additional 0.28 per cent, bringing total market capitalisation down from N163.99 trillion to N163.10 trillion. The bulk of the market contraction was driven by heavy pressure from tier-one lenders and telecommunications sectors. On Tuesday, major stocks like Sovereign Trust Insurance, Unilever Nigeria, Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals, and BUA Cement, alongside financial giants GTCO and Zenith Bank, suffered sharp declines.
On Wednesday, the NGX Premium Index dropped by 1.02 per cent, with MTN Nigeria Communications, Access Holdings, United Bank for Africa, and GTCO leading the decline. Despite this overall bearish trend, selective buying interest offered some relief, with BUA Cement recording a recovery on Wednesday and certain consumer goods and growth stocks posting slight increases.
Daily trading activity remained high, with 548.65 million shares traded in 47,203 deals on Tuesday and 1.035 billion shares across 44,398 deals on Wednesday.
Written by urgent.news from Punch Nigeria's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
