By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited depreciated by 0.17 per cent on Friday as profit-taking activity crept back into Customs Street as a result of weak investor sentiment.
The bourse came under selling pressure yesterday as traders cut down their exposure to equities amid an unstable macroeconomic environment caused by fuel subsidy removal and exchange rate unification.
Business Post reports that the local stock exchange welcomed a new member on the last trading session of the week. VFD Group listed its equities on the platform.
Despite pushing the value of the market higher at the close of transactions, it went down by 0.05 per cent or N17 billion to N36.510 trillion from the N36.527 trillion it ended a day earlier.
As for the All-Share Index (ASI), it decreased during the trading session by 115.62 points to settle at 66,454.57 points compared with Thursday’s closing value of 66,570.19 points.
Data revealed that the industrial goods sector shrank by 4.76 per cent and the insurance counter declined by 1.54 points. However, the banking space grew by 0.71 per cent, while the energy and the consumer goods indices closed flat each.
The activity chart was mixed on Friday after the trading value rose by 89.36 per cent to N8.9 billion from N4.7 billion, and the trading volume retreated by 63.12 per cent to 374.1 million units from 1.0 billion units as the number of deals moderated by 1.97 per cent to 6,822 deals from 6,959 deals.
The most traded stock yesterday was UBA, which sold 52.4 million units for N901.3 million, followed by Fidelity Bank with the sale of 49.7 million units for N412.9 million. BUA Cement traded 45.1 million stocks worth N4.1 billion, Access Holdings exchanged 29.7 million equities valued at N475.6 million, and Oando transacted 21.6 million shares valued at N195.8 million.
The market breadth was negative during the trading session, with 25 price losers and 20 price gainers.
Oando topped the losers’ chart on Friday after it declined by 9.55 per cent to N9.00m SCOA Nigeria shed 9.52 per cent to close at N1.14, NEM Insurance lost 9.09 per cent to trade at N5.00, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance slumped by 8.93 per cent to N1.02, and GlaxoSmithKline dropped 8.80 per cent to quote at N11.40.
Conversely, Omatek topped the gainers log after it improved its price by 10.00 per cent to 44 Kobo, VFD Group rose by 9.96 per cent to N269.30, Airtel Africa appreciated by 8.53 per cent to N1,400.10, Caverton expanded by 5.84 per cent to N1.45, and Linkage Assurance rose by 4.17 per cent to 75 Kobo.
Adedapo Adesanya