Trading at the domestic bourse started the week on a negative mood, taking the bearish sentiment to six consecutive trading sessions.

The price depreciation was due to profit-taking sentiments in all the major sectors except the consumer goods and banking sectors.

Specifically, the All-Share Index shed 6.16 points or 0.02 per cent to close at 38,915.62 from 38,921.78 posted on Friday.

Accordingly, month-to-date and year-to-date losses stood at 0.8 per cent and 3.4 per cent, respectively.

Similarly, the market capitalisation lost N3 billion to close at N20.275 trillion in contrast with N20.278 trillion recorded on Friday.

The market negative performance was driven by price depreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks, which are Guinness, Lafarge Africa, Oando, Fidson Healthcare and SCOA.

Analysts at United Capital anticipated some bargain hunting on some stocks that experienced selloffs in the previous week.

“In the medium term, we expect the market to remain choppy. Additionally, market participants will be watching the fixed income space closely amid a hike in stop rates at the recent Nigerian Treasury Bills (NTB) auction,” they said.

The market breadth closed negative with 20 losers, against 18 gainers. SCOA led the losers’ chart by 10 per cent to close at N1.17 per share.

Academy Press followed with a decline of 7.69 per cent to close at 36k, while UACN Property Development Company was down by 6.21 per cent to close at N1.51 per share.

Associated Bus Company depreciated by 5.71 per cent to close at 33k, while Oando declined by 4.09 per cent to close at N4.45 per share.

On the other hand, Morison Industries dominated the gainers’ chart in percentage terms, gaining 9.38 per cent to close at N2.10 per share.

Sovereign Trust Insurance followed with a gain of eight per cent to close at 27k, while Linkage Assurance appreciated by 5.26 per cent to close at 60k per share.

Fidelity Bank went up by 4.35 per cent to close at N2.40, while International Breweries appreciated by 4.17 per cent to close at N5 per share.

Total volume traded appreciated by 30.11 per cent to 201.10 million shares worth N2.53 billion traded in 3,340 deals.

This was against a total of 154.56 million shares worth N2.27 billion traded in 3,467 deals on Friday.

Transactions in the shares of Universal Insurance topped the activity chart with 19.45 million shares valued at N3.89 million.

Fidelity Bank followed with 19.28 million shares worth N46.51 million, while FBN Holdings traded 16.68 million shares valued at N12.49 million.

Courteville Business Solutions traded 13.76 million shares valued at N3.87 million, while Access Bank sold 13.49 million shares worth N125.06 million.