By Dipo Olowookere
For the third consecutive session, transactions at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) turned bearish on Tuesday.
The local equity market lost 1.06 percent yesterday on further profit-taking on some blue-chip stocks like Dangote Cement, MTN Nigeria and others.
This depressed the All-Share Index (ASI) by 254.93 points to settle at 23,695.90 points as against 23,950.83 points of the previous session.
Equally, the market capitalisation reduced by N133 billion to close at N12.349 trillion in contrast to N12.482 trillion it ended on Monday.
The market closed with 15 price losers and 14 price gainers. Dangote Cement was the heaviest price loser, shedding N6.50 to sell at N143.50 per share.
MTN Nigeria lost 40 kobo to trade at N111.60 per unit, BUA Cement fell by 30 kobo to quote at N31.60 per share, Caverton depreciated by 27 kobo to trade at N2.43 per share, while Arbico declined by 25 kobo to sell at N2.32 per unit.
On the flip side, C&I Leasing topped the gainers’ chart after adding 30 kobo to its share price to quote at N5.10 per unit.
Eterna appreciated by 22 kobo to sell at N2.55 per share, NPF Microfinance Bank gained 12 kobo to settle at N1.35 per unit, May & Baker appreciated by 10 kobo to finish at N2.68 per share, while Neimeth increased by 6 kobo to sell at 66 kobo per share.
A total of 155.7 million stocks worth N1.7 billion were transacted on Tuesday in 4,005 deals compared with the 207.2 million equities valued at N1.8 billion traded on Monday in 4,460 deals.
This indicated that the volume of shares exchanged at the market yesterday depreciated by 24.85 percent, while the value of the trades fell by 5.66 percent, with the number of deals going down by 10.20 percent.
Apart from the energy sector, which closed flat, every other sector closed lower, with the industrial goods sector being the worst hit, losing 1.84 percent.
The insurance index lost 0.63 percent, the banking space depreciated by 0.26 percent, while the consumer goods counter declined by 0.02 percent.
