- Investors lose N139.79bn as market indicators fall
BY FESTUS OKOROMADU, ABUJA
President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Olasupo Olusi to serve as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Industry for a term of four years in the first instance.
According to a statement by presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, on Thursday night, the President’s approval of Olusi’s appointment followed the voluntary resignation of former BoI Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Olukayode Pitan.
Ngelale said Olusi has served as a World Bank economist and development finance expert over the past 20 years.
“Between 2011 and 2015, Dr. Olusi served as the economic adviser to the then Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance. He is an alumnus of Hull University, United Kingdom.
“He also obtained a Master’s degree in International Money, Finance, and Investment, as well as a Doctorate in Finance & Economics from Durham University, United Kingdom, in 2005.
“The President tasks the new BoI Chief Executive to ensure that Nigerians, who are operating all sizes of enterprises across sectors, are given fair and equitable access to much needed support in order to bolster employment generation and wealth creation amongst income groups in the country with special regard for lower and middle income enterprise operators,” he stated.
Investors lose N139.79bn as market indicators fall
Meanwhile, trading activities on the Nigerian bourse, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, exhibited lackluster performance on Thursday, with the benchmark index experiencing a 0.38 percent decline to 67,098.80 points.
Consequently, the market’s year-to-date return declined to 30.92 percent, while the market capitalization decreased by N139.79 billion to N36.86 trillion.
Notably, stocks in the banking, insurance, and consumer goods sectors saw downward repricing, resulting in losses for MCNICHOLS, OMATEK, STANBIC, ACCESSCORP, FIDELITY, NB, and ZENITH, with their share prices falling by 8.82 percent, 8.70 percent, 8.49 percent, 2.0 percent, 2.89 percent, 1.97 percent and 1 percent.
The market witnessed more losers 25 in all, than gainers 16, and across the sectoral front, the sentiment was predominantly negative.
Four of the five tracked sectors closed in the negative territory, except for the Oil and Gas sector, which remained unchanged from the previous day.
Consequently, the Banking, Insurance, and Consumer goods indexes nosedived by 1.08 percent, 1.04 percent, and 0.07 percent, respectively, while the Industrial Goods index was mildly bearish.
Trading activity levels also showed a negative trend, with notable decreases in the total number of deals, traded volume, and value for the day.
Total deals decreased by 13.25 percent, totaling 5,348 trades, while the traded volume and value saw significant drops of 26.70 percent, reaching 291.40 million units, and 7.10 percent to N4.3.7 billion.
At the close of Thursday’s session, UBA was the most traded security in both volume and value, with 56.29 million units worth N1.05 billion.