By Dipo Olowookere
The market breadth of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed negative on Thursday after 28 equities depreciated in price as against the 19 price gainers recorded.
Most of the heavy decliners were from the banking sector, depressing the market by 0.50 per cent after its index went down by 2.66 per cent at the close of transactions yesterday.
Apart from the energy index, which closed flat, the remaining sectors closed stronger as the insurance index grew by 1.52 per cent, the consumer goods counter appreciated by 0.44 per cent, while the industrial goods sector gained 0.33 per cent.
When market activities were wrapped up, the All-Share Index (ASI) reduced by 174.36 points to settle at 34,643.65 points as against 34,818.01 points it ended the previous day. Also, the market capitalisation decreased by N92 billion to close at N18.102 trillion as against N18.194 trillion it finished on Thursday.
A total of 364.9 million stocks worth N3.5 billion were traded in 6,340 deals yesterday as against the 661.1 million equities worth N8.3 billion transacted in 7,324 deals a day earlier, indicating 44.80 per cent decline in the trading volume, 57.80 per cent decline in the trading value and 13.44 per cent decline in the number of deals.
Transcorp was the most active stock of the session, trading 50.7 million units valued at N53.9 million, FBN Holdings transacted 38.6 million shares worth N292.4 million, Access Bank exchanged 25.9 million shares for N227.2 million, UBA traded 24.8 million stocks valued at N214.2 million, while Fidelity Bank transacted 24.4 million shares for N67.0 million.
The heaviest price loser yesterday was Presco, which lost N7.95 to close at N71.80 per share, Stanbic IBTC depreciated by N1.85 to finish at N43 per unit, GTBank lost N1.20 to close at N35.80 per share, Dangote Sugar fell by N1.05 to end at N21.20 per unit, while Zenith Bank declined by 65 kobo to close at N26.05 per share.
The highest price gainer was Nigerian Breweries, which added N2.50 to its share value to end at N60.50 per share. Lafarge Africa gained N1 to close at N25.10 per share, BOC Gases grew by 61 kobo to N6.77 per unit, PZ Cussons appreciated by 45 kobo to N5.30 per share, while Eterna gained 43 kobo to sell at N4.78 per share.
