By Dipo Olowookere
The reign of the bears at the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) was stretched to another day on the back of sustained profit-taking, which left the market further weakened by 0.29 per cent on Tuesday.
Investors continued to rebalance their portfolios and trim their holding in some mid and high-cap equities that have yielded considerable returns in the past days.
These stocks cut across the key sectors of the market but at the close of transactions yesterday, the insurance index improved by 0.59 per cent, while the banking counter managed to rise by 0.03 per cent.
For the consumer goods index, it went down by 0.37 per cent. The energy space dropped 0.20 per cent, while the industrial goods sector depreciated by 0.05 per cent.
The losses posted by these three sectors contributed to the 110.72 points decline in the All-Share Index (ASI), closing at 38,601.83 points in contrast to 38,712.55 points it finished on Monday.
In the same vein, the market capitalisation reduced by N59 billion to settle at N20.201 trillion compared with N20.260 trillion it closed at the preceding day.
Guinness Nigeria suffered the highest loss at the stock market yesterday as its equity price went down by 9.91 per cent to N24.10 and was trailed by Tripple G, which lost 9.72 per cent to close at 65 kobo.
NCR Nigeria depreciated by 9.68 per cent to N2.52, Champion Breweries declined by 9.09 per cent to N2.00, while Jaiz Bank dropped 7.69 per cent to trade at 60 kobo.
On the other hand, Japaul finished stronger by 8.70 per cent to trade at 75 kobo and was followed by NAHCO, which gained 7.39 per cent to close at N2.18.
Sterling Bank appreciated by 7.14 per cent to N1.80, Stanbic IBTC gained 5.75 per cent to sell for N46.00, while Chams grew by 5.00 per cent to 21 kobo.
At the market on Tuesday, apart from the number of deals which went down by 6.44 per cent to 4,011 deals from 4,287 deals, the volume of shares transacted increased by 7.64 per cent to 208.8 million units from 194.0 million units, while the value of trades rose by 113.29 per cent to N2.9 billion from N1.4 billion.
