By Francis Ekeh

The Nigerian equity market closed Tuesday’s trading session on a bearish note as the NGX benchmark index declined by 0.3% to close at 48,879.7 points. Consequently, the Year-to-date (YTD) return of the market weakened to 14.4% from 14.7% the previous trading day.

Top gainers in Tuesday’s trading session were led by MULTIVERSE (+9.8%), RTBRISCOE (+8.8%) and NGXGROUP (+7.5%).

However, INTBREW (-9.1%), REDSTAREX (-7.8%) and SOVRENINS (-7.4%) posted biggest losers.

The total volume and value traded declined by 51.4% and 36.1% respectively to 173.4mn unit and ₦2.4bn.

On the sectoral breakdown, performance was majorly bearish as three indices with exception to marginal growth rate in Industrial Goods index and a 0.4% increase in Consumer Goods index.

This is accredited to gains in AIICO (+5.8%) and WAPIC (+2.9%). 

Meanwhile, the Banking, Consumer Goods and Oil and Gas indices possessed a bearish performance, down 2.6%, 0.4% and 0.3% respectively.

Operators attribute their losses to investors’ selloffs in FIDELITYBK (-4.9%), INTBREW (-9.1%),  and OANDO (-2.1%) respectively. 

It will be recalled that the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGXGROUP), one of the top gainers in Tuesday’s trading session, finished its fiscal year 2020 with a 23.9% decrease in revenue year-on-year, with ₦3.7bn, as opposed to the ₦5.0bn recorded in the previous year.

Markey analysts also observed a percentage decrease in other years as well (2016-2020), with the exception of 2017 and 2019, when their revenue increased by 129.8% and 2.7%, respectively, from ₦2.6bn in 2016 to ₦5.9bn in 2017 and ₦4.8bn in 2018 to ₦5.0bn in 2019.