Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
Despite recording a good turnover and positive investor sentiment, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited closed slightly lower by 0.02 per cent on Thursday.
The local stock market closed the trading session with 17 price losers and 18 price gainers led by UAC Nigeria, which rose by 10.00 per cent to N12.10.
Royal Exchange improved its share price by 9.80 per cent to N1.12, Coronation Insurance rose by 8.16 per cent to 53 kobo, Presco gained 6.40 per cent to trade at N133.00, while Multiverse increased its value by 4.55 per cent to 23 kobo.
On the flip side, Niger Insurance topped the decliners’ log with a price depreciation of 9.09 per cent to trade at 20 kobo and was trailed by Cornerstone Insurance, which fell by 6.45 per cent to 58 kobo.
Veritas Kapital depreciated by 4.55 per cent to 21 kobo, Seplat declined by 3.13 per cent to sell for N930.00, while Lasaco Assurance retreated by 2.80 per cent to N1.04.
The performance of the sectors showed that the financial equities made attempts to rally the market but they could not do it alone, with the insurance and banking indices rising by 0.08 per cent and 0.01 per cent respectively.
The market slipped yesterday as a result of the poor performance by the energy and consumer goods counters, which depreciated by 1.76 per cent 0.45 per cent respectively, while the industrial goods index closed flat.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) went down by 11.24 points to 47,353.22 points from 47,364.46 points, while the market capitalisation declined by N6 billion to N25.521 trillion from N25.527 trillion.
As earlier stated, the turnover for yesterday was better as the trading volume rose by 64.39 per cent to 239.7 million shares from 145.8 million shares, the trading value improved by 53.51 per cent to N3.9 billion from N2.5 billion, while the number of deals declined by 6.44 per cent to 3,848 deals from 4,113 deals.
Business Post reports that Veritas Kapital displaced UBA as the most active stock on Thursday with the sale of 30.0 million units worth N6.3 million, trailed by UBA with the sale of 27.7 million units valued at N235.2 million.
FBN Holdings transacted 23.0 million shares for N272.0 million, GTCO exchanged 18.3 million stocks for N477.8 million, while Fidelity Bank traded 16.1 million equities valued at N47.8 million.
