The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) began the week in a decline as the market lost N121 billion on Monday amid CBN Forbearance Directive which led to profit taking majorly in banking stocks.
At the close of trading on Monday, the All-share Index and Market Capitalization had dropped by 0.17% basis profit.
Notably, the All-share Index declined by 191.30 basis profit, from 115,529.54 points in the previous trading session, to close at 115,238.24 on Monday.
At the same time, the market capitalization dropped to N72.67 trillion down from the prior close of N72.79 trillion.
The decline was largely driven by sell-off and profit-taking in some large and medium-cap stocks across major sectors, particularly within the banking sector, which lost 3.98%. Some of the notable decliners include ACCESSCORP, NNFM, and FCMB, amongst others.
For the top performers, GUINEAINS led the chart with a 10 percent increase closing at N0.77, followed by ELLAHLAKES which rose by 9.93 percent to N4.79 per share, others include LEGENDINT which rose by 9.87% to N7.79 per share, ROYALEX grew by 9.68% to N1.02 per share, and FISON increased by 9.64% to N42.10 per share.
The top decliners for the day were led by NNFM which lost 10 percent to close at N101.30 per share, followed by CILEASING which shed 9.68 percent and depreciated to 4.20 per share, UPL lost 9.27 percent and closed at N4.99 per share, DEAPCAP lost 8.99 percent, fell to 0.81 per share, and LEARNAFRCA 8.43 percent to close at N3.80 per share.
The total value of trades was up by 5.75 percent, while the Total volume dropped by 33.72 percent. The banking sector equities experienced lots of market activities as top values with the highest trading volume were majorly from the banking sector. Leading the top trades by volume chart was ACCESSCORP which accounted for 12.86 percent of total trades.
ZENITHBANK led as the most traded stock in terms of value, accounting for 16.16 percent of the total value trades.
The Central Bank of Nigeria recently issued forbearance directives to banks, suspending dividend payouts, director bonuses, and new foreign investment aimed at strengthening the sector, leading to panic selling of banking stocks in the market in a profit-taking move.
