Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The local bourse recorded a marginal loss, 0.05 percent, on Wednesday following the 1.01 percent decline printed by the oil/gas counter during the session caused by Total Nigeria’s price depreciation.
The energy stock led the losers’ chart yesterday after going down by N10.70 to trade at N96.30 per unit, while MTN Nigeria trailed with a price depreciation of N3 to settle at N100 per share.
Africa Prudential went down by 38 kobo to sell at N3.47 per unit, FCMB declined by 6 kobo to quote at N1.50 per share, while GlaxoSmithKline reduced by 5 kobo to N3.80 per share.
On the other side of the coin, Zenith Bank emerged the highest price riser, growing by 80 kobo to trade at N11.75 per share, Cadbury Nigeria rose by 50 kobo to N5.65 per unit, Lafarge Africa appreciated by 40 kobo to N9.50 per unit, UBA gained 40 kobo to sell at N4.80 per shar, while PZ Cussons rose by 35 kobo to N4.40 per share.
The activity level was weak during the midweek session as the volume of trades dropped 29.27 percent, the value of transactions went down by 37.25 percent, while the number of deals fell by 15.06 percent.
A total of 233.5 million shares worth N2.2 billion were transacted on Wednesday in 3,874 deals in contrast to the 330.1 million equities valued at N3.6 billion traded on Tuesday in 4,561 deals.
Banking stocks remained the delight of market participants, especially the five tier-one lenders. At the close of transactions, GTBank traded 49.7 million units worth N847.8 million, Zenith Bank traded 44.2 million equities valued at N522.2 million, Access Bank exchanged 44.2 million stocks worth N250.3 million, UBA sold 23.3 million shares for N109.9 million, while FBN Holdings transacted 18.6 million traded N74.7 million.
A look at the major market indicators showed that the All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 11.68 points to 21,729.48 points from 21,741.16 points, while the market capitalisation reduced to N6 billion to N11.324 trillion from N11.330 trillion.
