By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) suffered its first loss in 11 days on Friday after finishing bullish for 10 straight days.
Business Post reports that speculative pressure weighed in on the market today, which led to profit-taking by investors.
Dangote Cement led 35 other stocks to crash the market by 0.81 percent and also left the market breadth negative after only 15 equities appreciated.
The year-to-date return fell to 4.90 percent at the close of trading activities on the floor of the NSE from 5.76 percent the previous day.
The All-Share Index (ASI) also suffered a loss, declining by 231.24 points to close at 28,192.46 points, while the market capitalisation fell by N80 billion to finish at N9.746 trillion.
Our correspondent further reports that Dangote Cement went down by N8.30k to lead the losers’ chart, closing at N165 per share.
It was closely followed by Unilever, which declined by N1.44k to finish at N36.1k per share, and Stanbic IBTC, which slumped by N1 to end at N26 per share.
Also, Okomu Oil depreciated by N1 to close at N50 per share, while Oando weakened by 92k to close at N8.62k per share.
At the other end, Nestle went up by N35 to close at N835 per share, while Seplat advanced by N16.43k to finish at N400 per share.
Nigerian Breweries progressed by N6.19k to end at N149 per share, Total advanced by N5.90k to finish at N268.90k per share and Guinness moved up by N2.94k to close at N69 per share.
The volume and value of shares traded on the floor of the NSE finished higher than what was achieved yesterday by investors.
Business Post reports that a total of 1.1 billion shares were exchanged on Friday in 5,342 deals valued at N9.2 billion, compared with 801 million units transacted on Thursday in 6,481 deals worth N7.8 billion.
Adedapo Adesanya