Continuous sell-offs at the Nigerian equities market today extended bearish performance into the second trading session of the week as benchmark indices of the All-Share Index fell 0.8 percent to settle at
36,963.70 points.

Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) loss worsened to 3.3 percent, the lowest in six weeks. Market capitalization depreciated by N109.82 billion to close at N13.45 trillion.

Equity analysts attributed the negative performance to losses in shares of Stanbic IBTC Bank (-7.7%), International Breweries (-7.4%) and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (-1.5%). Activity level was mixed as volume traded waned 32.9 percent to 203.6 million units while value traded rose 17.1 percent to N2.4 billion.

The top traded stocks by volume were Transcorp (20.7m), Access Bank (19.5m) and Zenith Bank (15.4m) while Guaranty Trust Bank (N434.4m), Zenith (N368.7m) and Nigerian Breweries (N336.9m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Performance across sectors remained bearish as 4 of 5 indices closed southwards. The industrial goods and oil & gas indices fell 2.4 percent and 1.3 percent as a result of losses in WAPCO (-8.0%) and MOBIL (-0.3%) respectively.

Similarly, the consumer goods and banking indices shed 1.2 percent and 0.9 percent respectively following sell-offs.

On the other hand, the insurance index was the lone gainer, inching 0.2 percent northwards on the back of buy interest in Custodian and Alliance Insurance (+2.5%), Continental (+3.5%) and Mutual Benefit
Assurance (+5.9%).

In all, investors bought and sold 208.80 million shares valued at N2.38 million exchanged in 4,178 deals.