By Adedapo Adesanya
For the third consecutive trading session, the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange finished in the bearish zone as it lost 0.02 per cent on Wednesday, May 18.
The woes of the NASD OTC bourse were further compounded by the decline in the price of Capital Bancorp Plc by 34 kobo or 9.86 per cent to N3.11 per unit compared with the N3.45 per unit it traded in the previous day.
In the absence of securities to upturn the weak sentiment, the market capitalisation of the exchange closed relatively flat at N1.06 trillion, while NASD Unlisted Securities Index (NSI) decreased by 0.2 points to end the midweek session at 807.13 points compared with 807.33 points recorded in the previous session.
During the session, there was a 22.2 per cent slide in the volume of securities traded by investors to 113,500 units from the 145,884 units reported a day earlier.
However, the value of shares traded yesterday surged by 118.4 per cent to N2.9 million from the preceding session’s N1.3 million, while the number of trades went down by 36.4 per cent to seven deals from the 11 deals carried out on Tuesday.
Like in the previous trading session, AG Mortgage Plc ended Wednesday as the most active stock by volume on a year-to-date basis with the sale of 2.3 billion units of its stocks valued at N1.2 billion, Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc followed with a turnover of 661.7 million units worth N13.9 billion, while Food Concepts Plc was in third place with the sale of 94.0 million units valued at N77.8 million.
Likewise, CSCS retained its position as the most traded stock by value on a year-to-date basis with the sale of 661.6 million units of its securities valued at N13.9 billion. VFD Group Plc was in second place with the sale of 9.4 million units worth N2.9 billion, while AG Mortgage Bank Plc was in third place with a turnover of 2.3 billion units valued at N1.2 billion.