By Dipo Olowookere
The nation’s stock market continued its bearish run on Wednesday after a total of 20 equities led by Nestle Nigeria closed in the negative region.
The midweek trading session on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) finished 0.20 percent lower to expand the year-to-date loss further to 5.80 percent.
This was caused by the 1.88 percent loss recorded by the industrial stocks and the 0.35 percent decline by consumer goods equities.
At the close of transactions yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) weakened further by 59.68 points to settle at 29,609.00 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N26 billion to end at N13.048 trillion.
Nestle Nigeria led the losers’ table on Wednesday with a price depreciation of N49.20k to quote at N1350 per unit.
It was followed by Beta Glass, which lost N7.35k to end at N66.35k per share, and CCNN, which went down by N1.30k to close at N12 per share.
Furthermore, Cadbury Nigeria depreciated by 70 kobo to finish at N10.25k per unit, while MTN Nigeria decreased by 50 kobo to settle at N128.50k per unit.
Conversely, Seplat put up a good performance and had N5 added to its share value as a reward, closing at N500 per unit.
Nigerian Breweries, which followed, gained N4 to close at N62 per share, while Forte Oil appreciated by N1.40k to finish at N30.40k per unit.
Berger Paints increased its share price by 45 kobo to close at N7.15k per share, while Ecobank rose by 30 kobo to quote at N10.55k per unit.
The level of activity was mixed during yesterday’s trading session as the volume of share transacted by investors increasing by 52.78 percent, but the value going down by 24.95 percent.
During the midweek session, the volume of transactions went up to 387.1 million from 253.4 million, while the value dropped to N3.1 billion from N4.1 billion.
Business Post reports that the rise in the volume of shares traded by investors was triggered by the sale of 194.7 million units of Wema Bank shares worth N128.5 million.
At the day’s session, GTBank traded 20.4 million equities valued at N625.6 million, while Unilever Nigeria exchanged 20.1 million shares for N643.1 million.
In addition, FBN Holdings transacted 17.4 million shares at N118.9 million, while Flour Mills sold 14.6 million equities worth N204.6 million.
