Following sharp declines in the stock prices of Airtel Africa Plc, Beta Glass Plc, and NEM Insurance Plc last week, investors lost N1.7tn at the close of trading on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited.
On October 14, 2022, the market entered the trading week with N25.91 trillion and closed it at 24.182 trillion on October 21, 2022.
The loss of N2.3 trillion by Airtel Africa, Beta Glass, and NEM Insurance collectively at the close of the trading week to lead the losers’ list was a key contributor to the depreciation.
Airtel Africa Plc was the worst performer, falling from N1,800 per share to N1,312 per share, a loss of 27.10%. Additionally, Beta Glass Plc share price fell 9.98% to settle at N41.50 a share from N46.10 at the start of trading.
The local stock exchange ended the day in the red, down 667 basis points or 6.7% so far this week.
The Insurance index was the biggest loser of the week under review, falling by 370 basis points to close with value exchanged at N4.4m and volume traded at 6.6 million units.
Similar declines were seen in the Oil and Gas index, which lost 150 basis points, and the Consumer Goods index, which lost 90 basis points, with volume and value traded closing at 3.3 million units and N67.9 million, respectively.
The Industrial Goods and Banking indices, on the other hand, had gains of 320 bps and 120 bps, respectively.
At the end of the trading week, the two indexes’ volume traded finished at 1.6 million units and 65.0 million units, respectively, while their value traded closed at N50 million and N1.7 billion.
Investors traded a total of 938.020 million shares worth N16.701 billion in 15,700 trades this week as opposed to 491.815 million shares worth N11.922 billion that changed hands in 14,350 deals the previous week.
Volume-wise, the Financial Services Industry topped the activity chart with 501.278 million shares worth N5.080 billion exchanged in 8,279 deals, or 53.44 percent and 30.42 percent, respectively, of the total stock turnover volume.
The Oil and Gas Industry came in second with a turnover of 28.244 million shares worth N983.561m in 846 trades, and the ICT Industry came in third with 316.347 million shares valued at N8.729bn in 1,249 deals.
Mr. Tajudeen Olayinka, a capital market analyst, told The Punch in an interview on the week’s performance that the market would experience a protracted repurchase of equities across the board and that a rebound would occur once the economy stabilized.
