By Dipo Olowookere
The bears dislodged the bulls at the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Wednesday after days of unsuccessful attempts supported by bargain-hunting.
Yesterday, the bourse fell by 2.47 per cent as a result of profit-taking across the main sectors of the market, with sell-offs in some large and mid-cap equities.
Business Post reports that 63 shares depreciated in price during the trading session, and 12 shares appreciated in price at the close of transactions.
ABC Transport, eTranzact, Tantalizers, FBN Holdings, and Transcorp lost 10.00 per cent each in the midweek session to settle at 45 Kobo, N8.55, 27 Kobo, N19.35, and N4.23 apiece.
However, the duo of Deap Capital and Courteville rose by 10.00 per cent each to quote at 33 Kobo and 88 Kobo, respectively, as Golden Guinea Breweries improved by 9.88 per cent to N2.67, The Initiates expanded by 9.80 per cent to 56 Kobo, and Morison Industries gained 9.79 per cent to close at N2.58.
The insurance index depreciated by 5.42 per cent on Wednesday, the industrial counter shed 5.39 per cent, the banking sector fell by 2.61 per cent, the consumer goods space shrank by 0.77 per cent, and the energy sector went down by 0.45 per cent.
Consequently, the market capitalisation of the NGX depleted by N884 billion to N34.874 trillion from N35.758 trillion, and the All-Share Index (ASI) contracted by 1,622.36 points to 64,046.93 points from 65,669.29 points.
The desire of investors to quickly book profit raised the activity level higher yesterday, with the trading volume, value and the number of deals skyrocketing by 37.71 per cent, 35.11 per cent, and 55.55 per cent apiece.
This was because traders bought and sold 1.2 billion equities valued at N12.7 billion in 13,878 deals at the close of transactions, in contrast to the 844.7 million equities valued at N9.4 billion exchanged in 8,922 deals a day earlier.
UBA ended the trading day as the busiest stock after it posted a turnover of 177.8 million units worth N2.4 billion, followed by Japaul with 110.3 million units valued at N147.7 million. Transcorp traded 87.1 million shares valued at N380.7 million, FCMB sold 86.5 million equities for N577.9 million, and Access Holdings transacted 65.5 million stocks worth N1.1 billion.
