By Adedapo Adesanya
The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange failed to register a third consecutive bullish closure as it was pulled into the negative territory following a marginal 0.01 per cent drop on Thursday, March 31.
The defeat came on the back of a loss recorded by Afriland Plc as the equities of the company went down by 4 kobo or 3.7 per cent to close at N1.09 per unit compared with N1.13 per unit it closed at the previous session.
As a result of this, the NASD unlisted securities index (NSI) moved down by 0.04 points to 733.30 points from 733.44 points, while the market capitalisation of the NASD OTC exchange slipped by N50 million to wrap the day at N952.62 billion in contrast to N952.67 billion it finished on Wednesday.
It was observed that the trading volume of the unlisted securities market slumped yesterday by 82.1 per cent as a total of 84,117 units of shares exchanged hands compared with 470,058 units transacted at the previous session.
In the same vein, the trading value slid by 99.5 per cent to N108,055.2 from the previous day’s value of N21.1 million as the number of deals went down by 60 per cent due to the four deals carried out on Thursday compared to the 10 deals executed at the midweek session.
At the close of business, the most traded stock by volume on a year-to-date basis was AG Mortgage Plc with a turnover of 2.3 billion units valued at N1.2 billion, followed by Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc with 658.9 million of units worth N13.8 billion, and NASD Plc with a turnover of 41.9 million units valued at N447.4 million.
But the most traded stock by value on a year-to-date basis was CSCS Plc as it has sold 658.9 million units valued at N13.8 billion, AG Mortgage Plc was in second place with the sale of 2.3 billion units worth N1.2 billion, while NASD Plc was in third place with the sale of 42.0 million units valued at N447.4 million.
Modupe Gbadeyanka