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Bearish sentiments have continued in the Nigerian stock market as the All Share Index, the benchmark stock index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, declined by 1.73 per cent on Friday.

According to a weekly report, the main index fell to 23,501.87 points at the end of the trading week on February 5, compared with 23,916.15 points recorded at the start of the week.

On a year-to-date basis, the index has fallen by 17.95 per cent.

Market capitalization also fell by 1.73 per cent to N8.083 trillion this week, compared with N8.225 trillion in the previous week.

The top five losers were Glaxo Smithkline, which fell 14.19 per cent to close at N23.16. Unilever Nigeria’s stock fell 13.9 per cent to close at N30.34. Unity Bank’s stock fell 12 per cent to close at N0.66; while FCMB Group’s equity fell 10.2 per cent to close at N0.88. 7-Up Bottling Company’s stock fell 9.85 per cent to close at N176.7.

The top five gainers this week were International Breweries, which rose 27.81 per cent to close at N20.45. Seplat Petroleum’s stock rose 25.10 per cent to close at N243. A.G. Leventis closed at N0.75, having jumped 8.7 per cent. Ecobank Transnational’s stock rose 6.37 per cent to close at N15.7. Guinness Nigeria rose 5.92 per cent to close at N122.34.

The three most traded equities were Wema Bank, FBN Holdings, and Zenith Bank – which accounted for 4.261 billion shares worth N8.548 billion in 3,763 deals, and contributed 83.76 per cent and 46.24 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

At the end of trading on February 5th, most sector indexes closed lower: NSE 30 index fell 1.83 per cent to close at 1,054.83 points; the NSE banking index fell 1.60 per cent to close at 237.28 points; the NSE pension index fell 1.08 per cent to close at 701.67 points. Other sectors indexes recorded growth, such as the NSE Asset Management Index, which rose 0.07 per cent to 1,205.33; the NSE Insurance Index rose 0.86 per cent to 133.86 points; the NSE Oil/Gas index rose 4.02 per cent to 333.47 points.