Customs Street Closes Friday Session 0.18% Lower

By Dipo Olowookere

The last trading session for this week at the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited turned red on Friday after succumbing to profit-taking by 0.18 per cent.

It was observed that investors on Customs Street offloaded some stocks for a weekend treat ahead of Valentine’s Day next Monday and this attracted the bears to the market.

The most affected counters were the energy, banking and insurance, which depreciated by 0.99 per cent, 0.95 per cent and 0.49 per cent respectively as only the consumer goods and industrial goods sectors grew by 0.10 per cent and 0.03 per cent apiece.

At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) went down by 84.04 per cent to 47,202.30 points from 47,286.34 points, while the market capitalisation dropped N45 billion to settle at N25.436 trillion compared with the previous day’s N25.481 trillion.

Unlike the preceding day, the level of activity improved yesterday as the trading volume rose by 57.23 per cent to 311.5 million units from 198.1 million units, the trading value increased by 28.79 per cent to N4.4 billion from N3.4 billion and the number of deals expanded by 14.49 per cent to 4,916 deals from 4,294 deals.

A breakdown showed that Access Bank dominated the session with the sale of 30.8 million stocks worth N322.4 million, followed by Sovereign Trust Insurance with 30.8 million shares worth N7.1 million.

NGX Group transacted 28.7 million equities valued at N773.2 million, Fidelity Bank sold 23.8 million stocks for N69.8 million, while Chams traded 22.2 million equities valued at N4.9 million.

Business Post reports that the market breadth was positive during the trading day as there were 19 appreciating shares and 16 depreciating shares.

Guinness Nigeria maintained its upswing yesterday with a further price appreciation of 10.00 per cent to trade at N60.50 and was followed by NCR Nigeria, which also gained 10.00 per cent to close at N3.30.

SCOA Nigeria improved by 9.88 per cent to N1.78, RT Briscoe appreciated by 8.33 per cent to sell for 39 kobo, while Lasaco Assurance increased by 5.66 per cent to N1.12.

At the other end of the table, Pharma-Deko was on top after its share price went down by 8.84 per cent to N1.65, NEM Insurance fell by 6.48 per cent to N3.32, Champion Breweries dropped 5.80 per cent to N2.11, Cutix declined by 4.94 per cent to N2.31, while International Breweries depreciated by 4.59 per cent to N5.20.