By Adedapo Adesanya
The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange closed lower by 0.58 per cent on Friday following renewed profit-taking by investors at the exchange.
This scrapped off 4.26 points from the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI), which finished the last trading session of the week at 732.15 points compared with 736.41 points of the previous session.
Similarly, the market capitalisation, which closed at the preceding day at N608.41 billion, ended the session at N604.88 billion after losing N3.53 billion.
It was observed that the decline posted at the market yesterday was mainly influenced by the duo of FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc and Nipco Plc.
Nipco Plc lost N5 or 7.1 per cent to wrap the session at N70.00 per unit versus N75.00 per unit of the previous day, while FrieslandCampina WAMCO depreciated by N2.65 or 2.4 per cent to trade at N110.00 per share as against Thursday’s closing price of N112.65 per share.
During the day, there was a decrease in the volume of securities traded by investors by 88.5 per cent to 392,727 units from the 3.4 million units of securities traded a day earlier.
There was also a fall in the value of securities on Friday by 67.7 per cent to N23.1 million from N71.6 million posted on Thursday, while the number of deals decreased by 11.1 per cent to eight deals from the nine deals achieved at the preceding session.
At the close of transactions, Food Concepts Plc remained as the most active stock by volume (year-to-date) with a turnover of 11.4 billion units valued at N14.4 billion, followed by Lighthouse Financial Services Plc with a turnover of 1.1 billion units worth N546.2 million, and Geo Fluids Plc with a turnover of 1.0 billion units valued at N700.1 million.
Also, Food Concepts Plc closed as the most active stock by value (year-to-date) with the sale of 11.4 billion units for N14.4 billion, followed by Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Group Plc with the sale of 456.5 million units valued at N9.2 billion, and VFD Group Plc with the sale of 10.4 million units worth N3.5 billion.