By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Profit-taking was witnessed on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last week and it was mainly on equities which have appreciated in the previous weeks.
During the week, 29 equities depreciated in price, higher than the 19 equities of the previous week, with Japaul leading the losers’ chart after losing 37.50 per cent to close at 95 kobo per unit.
Axa Mansard Insurance went down by 20.00 per cent to end at N1.28 per share, MRS Oil declined by 18.55 per cent to close at N11.20 per share, FTN Cocoa dropped 13.04 per cent to end at 60 kobo per share, while Chams declined by 10.71 per cent to end at N25 kobo per share.
Business Post reports that there were 53 price risers in the week, lower than the 60 price gainers of the earlier week and the chart was led by Champion Breweries, which gained 44.44 per cent to close at N1.95 per share. Trans-Nationwide Express appreciated by 37.50 per cent to end at N1.10 per share, NCR Nigeria moved up by 32.20 per cent to finish at N3.12 per share, Northern Nigerian Flour Mills gained 30.63 per cent to end at N9.68 per share, while Linkage Assurance increased by 30.43 per cent to close at 90 kobo per share.
At the close of transactions for the week, the All-Share Index and market capitalisation depreciated by 0.42 per cent and 0.38 per cent to close at 41,001.99 points and N21.449 trillion respectively.
Similarly, all other indices finished lower with the exception of NSE MERI Growth which appreciated by 0.12 per cent while the NSE ASeM and NSE Growth indices closed flat.
On the activity chart, a total of 4.3 billion shares worth N26.0 billion were traded in 32,849 deals by investors in contrast to the 3.5 billion shares valued at N32.7 billion transacted in 30,327 deals the preceding week.
The financial services sector led the activity chart by volume with 2.6 billion shares valued at N12.5 billion traded in 15,128, contributing 60.81 per cent and 47.92 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The conglomerates industry followed with 813.8 million shares worth N1.6 billion in 2,417 deals, while the third place was the oil and gas sector with a turnover of 212.1 million shares worth N822.0 million in 2,726 deals.
Transcorp, Living Trust Mortgage Bank and Japaul were the most active individual stocks, accounting for 1.6 billion shares worth N1.6 billion traded in 2,726 deals, contributing 36.9 per cent and 6.02 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.