By Dipo Olowookere
The bears returned to the domestic equity exchange on Thursday after profit-taking in banking and consumer goods stocks shrank the trading indices by 0.12 per cent.
Business Post observed that the banking index shed 0.62 per cent as the consumer goods counter depreciated by 0.03 per cent, while the insurance and industrial goods sectors gained 0.61 per cent and 0.10 per cent respectively, with the energy index closing flat.
At the close of trades, the All-Share Index (ASI) depleted by 60.87 points to 50,014.60 points from 50,075.47 points, while the market capitalisation deflated by N33 billion to N26.976 trillion from N27.009 trillion.
The loss posted yesterday was heavily impacted by blue-chip stocks led by MTN Nigeria, Zenith Bank and others as the market breadth closed positive with 21 price gainers and 15 price losers led by ABC Transport, which fell by 6.67 per cent to 28 Kobo.
Jaiz Bank went down by 5.56 per cent to 85 Kobo, Stanbic IBTC declined by 3.28 per cent to N28.05, Caverton depreciated by 2.86 per cent to N1.02, while UBA lost 2.78 per cent to sell for N7.00.
The share price of NAHCO improved during the session by 10.00 per cent to N5.83 as FCMB appreciated by 9.84 per cent to N3.35. Ikeja Hotel gained 9.43 per cent to quote at N1.16, Multiverse grew by 9.22 per cent to N2.25, while Courteville increased its share value by 8.51 per cent to 51 Kobo.
The activity chart was mixed on Thursday as the day was marred by low turnover after the volume of transactions decreased by 52.16 per cent to 133.6 million units from the previous day’s 279.2 million units.
However, the trading value improved by 17.06 per cent to N2.4 billion from N2.1 billion, while the number of deals appreciated by 20.02 per cent to 4,292 deals from 3,576 deals.
UBA sold the highest volume of shares on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday, 20.5 million units valued at N143.7 million and was closely followed by Chams, which sold 9.0 million units worth N2.8 million. Access Holdings transacted 8.2 million shares for N72.7 million, Japaul exchanged 7.4 million equities worth N2.9 million, while Jaiz Bank traded 7.1 million stocks valued at N6.2 million.
Adedapo Adesanya