By Dipo Olowookere
Short-term traders unleashed terror on the market on Wednesday, sending the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited back to the bears’ territory with a 0.22 per cent loss.
Business Post reports that the gains recorded yesterday were almost wiped off by profit-taking on the back of selloffs in GTCO, Access Bank, Ardova, FBN Holdings and others.
At the close of transactions, there were 24 price losers and 14 price gainers, indicating a negative market breadth and a weak investor sentiment.
Japaul closed as the worst-performing stock after its share value depreciated by 9.09 per cent to 40 kobo, followed by Neimeth, which also lost 9.09 per cent to trade at N1.80.
Unity Bank declined by 8.47 per cent to sell for 54 kobo, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance depleted by 8.06 per cent to close at 57 kobo, while Unilever Nigeria fell by 7.53 per cent to finish at N13.50.
The best performing stock for the trading day was ABC Transport, rising by 10.00 per cent to trade at 33 kobo. Chams grew by 4.55 per cent to sell for 23 kobo, Cutix gained 3.08 per cent to quote at N3.35, Wema Bank appreciated by 2.35 per cent to finish at 87 kobo, while Transcorp rose by 2.06 per cent to 99 kobo.
A check on the performance of the major sectors of the market showed that only the industrial goods sector closed in the green territory and it was by a marginal 0.01 per cent.
The insurance counter lost 0.85 per cent, the energy sector declined by 0.82 per cent, the consumer goods space depreciated by 0.66 per cent, while the banking index went down by 0.37 per cent.
At the close of trades on Wednesday, the All-Share Index (ASI) contracted by 94.30 points to settle at 43,349.90 points versus the preceding session’s 43,444.20 points, while the market capitalisation retreated by N49 billion to finish at N22.623 trillion in contrast to N22.672 trillion it ended a day earlier.
At the midweek session, the most traded stock was FBN Holdings as it sold 68.6 million units valued at N856.2 million, while the next, International Breweries, traded 36.7 million units valued at N201.8 million.
Further, GTCO exchanged 24.2 million equities worth N644.0 million, Unity Bank traded 9.5 million stocks worth N5.2 million, while Access Bank transacted 9.5 million shares for N87.3 million.
In all, a total of 264.8 million shares worth N6.1 billion exchanged hands in 4,230 deals on Wednesday as against the 423.8 million shares valued at N11.7 billion traded in 4,181 deals on Tuesday, implying that the trading volume and value went down by 37.53 per cent and 47.77 per cent respectively, while the number of deals increased by 1.17 per cent.
