By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited moderated by 0.26 per cent on Wednesday as investors quickly booked profit from the gains recorded at the market in the past trading sessions.
It was observed that traders sold off some shares, including Lafarge Africa, Access Bank and others during the session, allowing the bears to take over the stock market from the bulls and at the close of transactions, there were only 15 price gainers and 34 price losers.
The heaviest price loser was Niger Insurance as its value went down by 10.00 per cent to 27 kobo, International Breweries declined by 9.73 per cent to N5.10, RT Briscoe lost 9.09 per cent to settle at 70 kobo, NGX Group depreciated by 8.70 per cent to N23.10, while Cornerstone Insurance fell by 8.57 per cent to 64 kobo.
The highest price gainer for the day was Royal Exchange as its equity price rose by 10.00 per cent to N1.65, Seplat gained 9.33 per cent to sell for N1034.00, Multiverse grew by 9.09 per cent to 24 kobo, NEM Insurance improved by 8.38 per cent to N4.14, while FCMB rose by 8.13 per cent to N3.46.
According to data obtained by Business Post, the insurance sector appreciated during the session, the energy index closed flat, while the banking, consumer goods and industrial goods counters depreciated by 1.32 per cent, 1.28 per cent, 0.55 per cent.
The losses posted by these three key sectors weakened the All-Share Index (ASI) of the bourse by 121.94 points to 47,360.79 points from 47,482.73 points and deflated the market capitalisation by N66 billion to N25.525 trillion from N25.591 trillion.
At the market yesterday, Transcorp was the busiest stock as it sold 29.2 million units for N32.6 million, United Capital transacted 28.3 million units worth N374.2 million, Access Bank exchanged 17.7 million units for N181.5 million, Zenith Bank traded 17.5 million units valued at N470.7 million, while FCMB transacted 17.4 million units worth N57.6 million.
In all, investors transacted 280.0 million stocks worth N4.2 billion in 5,620 deals at the midweek session in contrast to the 370.5 million stocks worth N7.9 billion transacted in 6,045 deals a day earlier, indicating a decline in the trading volume, value and number of deals by 24.45 per cent, 46.99 per cent and 7.03 per cent respectively.
