By Dipo Olowookere
The decision of investors to take profit on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday left the market bleeding at the close of the trading session.
The selloffs witnessed in the one of the most active sectors of the market, banking, pushed the market down by 0.83 percent, halting the gains printed in the past sessions. This also reduced the year-to-date return to 9.76 percent.
Business Post reports that the All-Share Index (ASI) closed 247.80 points lower yesterday to 29,462.76 points from 29,710.56 points. Similarly, the market capitalisation reduced by N128 billion to N15.176 trillion from N15.304 trillion.
The market breadth finished negative at the session with 16 price losers and 15 price gainers. Heavyweights of the market were the most affected with Dangote Cement leading the pack as its share price went down by N2 to close at N173 per unit.
GTBank lost N1.80 to finish at N32.20 per unit, Access Bank fell by 70 kobo to settle at N10.05 per share, BUA Cement dropped 55 kobo to close at N36.45 per unit, while Zenith Bank depreciated by 40 kobo to sell at N22.35 per share.
Lafarge Africa took charge of the gainers’ log on Tuesday after adding N1 to its share value to trade at N17.35 per unit, while Nigerian Breweries closely followed with 90 kobo added to its share price to settle at N52 per unit.
MTN Nigeria appreciated by 20 kobo to finish at N128.50 per share, Oando gained 8 kobo to quote at N3.60 per unit, while UPDE Reit improved by 5 kobo to sell at N3.50 per share.
During Tuesday’s session, the banking sector suffered the heaviest loss, declining by 3.58 percent, while industrial goods sector depreciated by 0.45 percent.
However, insurance sector improved by 0.70 percent, consumer goods rose by 0.34 percent, while oil/gas sector gained 0.29 percent.
The activity level was mixed yesterday as the volume of trades increased by 2.21 percent to 272.8 million shares from 267.0 million units recorded on Monday, while the value of transactions reduced by 11.26 percent to N3.7 billion from N4.2 billion achieved the previous session, with the number of deals depreciating by 2.12 percent to 4,945 deals from 5,052 deals.
Zenith Bank was the most active stock at the market on Tuesday, trading 57.8 million shares worth N1.3 billion, while Access Bank sold 33.0 million equities valued at N340.8 million.
UBA transacted 22.4 million shares valued at N193.7 million, Oando traded 18.2 million stocks worth N65.6 million, while FCMB transacted 16.2 million shares for N32.3 million.
Adedapo Adesanya