Market Falls as Investors Sell-off MTN, Lafarge, Others for Profit

By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited posted a 0.38 per cent decline on Wednesday as a result of profit-taking in MTN Nigeria, Lafarge Africa, GTCO, Zenith Bank and 29 others.

In the previous trading sessions, the nation’s stock market had risen to levels last seen in 2008 as a result of renewed confidence investors have in the market and for traders, it was the right time to quickly pull out some profits.

This affected the All-Share Index (ASI) of the exchange yesterday as it suffered a contraction of 180.55 points, closing at 46,930.66 points in contrast to the previous day’s 47,111.21 points.

In the same vein, the market capitalisation depreciated during the trading day by N98 billion to settle at N25.289 trillion compared with N25.387 trillion it finished on Tuesday.

Business Post reports that ABC Transport finished the day as the worst-performing stock as a result of the 8.33 per cent loss it posted to close at 33 kobo.

Courteville depreciated by 6.90 per cent to 54 kobo, Caverton went down by 6.17 per cent to N1.52, May & Baker fell by 5.95 per cent to N4.27, while FTN Cocoa dropped 5.26 per cent to 36 kobo.

There were 21 price gainers at the trading session, with Ikeja Hotel leading with a price appreciation of 10.00 per cent to close at N1.43.

Conoil grew by 9.96 per cent to N26.50, Academy Press jumped by 9.71 per cent to N1.13, RT Briscoe rose by 8.33 per cent to 26 kobo, while Linkage Assurance appreciated by 6.52 per cent to 49 kobo.

Analysis of the sectoral performance showed that the insurance, banking and industrial goods sectors depreciated at the midweek session by 1.85 per cent, 1.39 per cent and 0.17 per cent, while the energy counter appreciated by 0.62 per cent, with the consumer goods sector closing flat.

It was observed that yesterday, traders bought and sold a total of 435.0 million shares worth N6.3 billion in 5,878 deals compared with the 341.3 million shares worth N3.7 billion transacted in 6,417 deals a day earlier, indicating an increase in the trading volume and value by 27.36 per cent and 69.55 per cent respectively, while the number of deals went down by 8.40 per cent.

Fidelity Bank ended the session as the most traded stock with the sale of 47.7 million units valued at N136.7 million, Transcorp sold 35.6 million units for N40.9 million, Courteville exchanged 32.5 million units worth N17.8 million, Zenith Bank traded 30.1 million units worth N799.5 million, while GTCO transacted 24.6 million units valued at N680.8 million.