BOC Gases, 19 Others Deflate Stock Market by 0.81%

By Dipo Olowookere

The stock market in Nigeria depreciated by 0.81 per cent on Thursday following sustained profit-taking in some equities like BOC Gases, MTN Nigeria, Lafarge Africa, Dangote Cement and 16 others.

BOC Gases led the losers’ chart after its share price went down by 9.99 per cent to N12.25 and was trailed by Livestock Feeds, which depreciated by 9.90 per cent to N1.73.

SCOA Nigeria fell by 9.66 per cent to N2.15, Red Star Express declined by 9.59 per cent to N3.11, while Regency Alliance Insurance dropped 9.38 per cent to trade at 29 kobo.

Business Post reports that there were 22 price gainers yesterday led by Conoil and Courtville, which gained 10.00 per cent each to close at N18.70 and 22 kobo respectively.

Seplat appreciated by 9.99 per cent to trade at N604.40, Linkage Assurance improved by 8.62 per cent to quote at 63 kobo, while Access Bank grew by 5.19 per cent to N8.10.

Apart from the industrial goods sector, which dropped 1.19 per cent due to selloffs in Dangote Cement, Lafarge Africa and others, every other counter closed positive.

The energy index appreciated by 6.48 per cent, the banking counter gained 1.55 per cent, consumer goods space improved by 0.34 per cent, while the insurance sector appreciated by 0.13 per cent.

At the close of transactions, the fall in the industrial goods sector impacted negatively on the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited as it dropped 319.08 points to settle at 39,114.73 points compared with the previous 39,433.81 points.

Also, it affected the market capitalisation of the exchange as it went down by N168 billion to N20.470 trillion from N20.638 trillion it closed on Wednesday.

Yesterday, investors traded a total of 403.5 million shares worth N4.8 billion in 4,342 deals compared with the 349.6 million shares worth N3.5 billion exchanged in 4,554 deals the preceding day.

A total of 105.9 million shares of Access Bank worth N844.2 million were traded, making the lender the most active at the market during the session.

NEM Insurance transacted 38.7 million equities worth N77.3 million, FBN Holdings exchanged 35.4 million stocks for N258.7 million, Zenith Bank traded 29.4 million shares for N641.8 million, while Fidelity Bank sold 22.3 million stocks for N49.6 million.