By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The offloading of banking and consumer goods equities last Friday resulted in the N75 billion decline in the total value of stocks on the local bourse.
Investors capitalised on the gains at the market last week to quickly take profit as fears of global economy continue to sway decisions of traders and governments across the world.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) lost 0.55 percent at the last trading session of the week, causing the All-Share Index (ASI) to reduce by 146.59 points to 26,279.61 points. Also, this led to the market capitalisation going down by N75 billion to N13.695 trillion.
Business Post reports that banking stocks depreciated last Friday by 2.96 percent, while the consumer goods shares declined by 0.12 percent.
However, the energy sector appreciated by 1.49 percent, insurance grew by 0.86 percent, while industrial goods index increased by 0.62 percent.
Despite the poor overall performance of the market last Friday, the market breadth closed positive, recording 19 price advancers as against 16 price decliners.
Zenith Bank was the heaviest price loser, depreciating by N1.20 to close at N18.80 per share, while Stanbic IBTC lost 70 kobo to finish at N35 per share.
Ecobank declined by 60 kobo to close at N5.85 per share, Unilever Nigeria went down by 50 kobo to close at N13 per share, while FBN Holdings depreciated by 40 kobo to close at N5.35 per share.
On the other hand, the highest price riser during session was Mobil Nigeria, which has informed the market of its intention to exit the stock exchange. Shares of the oil company rose by N13.30 to close at N146.50 per share.
BUA Cement gained 55 kobo to close t N35.30 per share, Red Star Express appreciated by 29 kobo to close at N3.27 per share, Union Bank grew by 20 kobo to finish at N7.05 per share, while May & Baker gained 19 kobo to close at N2.15 per share.
At the last trading session, the volume of shares transacted by investors reduced by 16.39 percent to 361.1 million units from 431.9 million units. Also, the value of stocks exchanged decreased by 45.36 percent to N4.3 billion from N7.8 billion, but the number of deals increased by 1.86 percent to 4,602 deals from 4,518 deals.
Dominating the trades was Zenith Bank, which sold 85.8 million shares valued at N1.7 billion.
GTBank, which followed, traded 44.0 million stocks worth N1.1 billion, UBA exchanged 34.9 million units valued at N242.7 million, Access Bank transacted 24.7 million shares for N214.6 million, while Fidelity Bank sold 22.8 million stocks for N45.3 million.