The Southward movement at the Nigerian stock market on Wednesday, January 13, escalated to panic trading as investors scrambled for exit over concerns that the global decline in crude oil price could worsen Nigeria’s volatile foreign exchange management.
With more than 11 losers to every gainer, the market was in full sell mode yesterday.
The use of open market sell orders, which mandate brokers to sell at prevailing prices, turned the market into a complete buyers’ market, piling up losses on the divesting investors.
Aggregate market value of all quoted companies stood at N321 billion in the marked down that followed the flood of sell orders. There were 34 losers to three gainers, while several other stocks were stuck at their nominal value of 50 kobo each.
The mid-week steep decline worsened the negative eight-day average year-to-date return to -12.4 per cent.
In the past three trading sessions, the stock market has lost an average of 7.6 per cent in consecutive negative trading sessions.
