By Dipo Olowookere
Investors showed a weak appetite for banking stocks on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday and this had a substantial effect on the bourse at the close of transactions.
Business Post reports that the local stock market further depreciated by 0.04 per cent yesterday on the back of the 1.20 per cent loss suffered by the banking sector due to sell-offs in Zenith Bank, GTCO, Access Holdings, UBA, Ecobank and Wema Bank.
The depreciation reported by the counter watered down the gains printed by the insurance, energy, consumer goods and the industrial goods sectors, which closed higher by 1.47 per cent, 0.46 per cent, 0.13 per cent and 0.13 per cent respectively.
When the closing gong was struck by 2:30 pm to signify the end of trading on the bourse, the All Share Index (ASI) was down by 23.25 points to 53,170.73 points from 53,193.98 points, while the market capitalisation shrank by N12 billion to N28.665 trillion from N28.677 trillion.
It was observed that the exchange depreciated on Thursday amid an improvement in trading activity, with the volume of shares, the value of shares and the number of trades rising by 27.70 per cent, 79.36 per cent and 1.88 per cent respectively as a result of interests in AIICO Insurance, Transcorp, Lafarge Africa, Oando, FBN Holdings, MTN Nigeria and others.
This was because traders bought and sold 318.4 million shares worth N3.3 billion in 4,345 deals compared with the 249.0 million shares worth N1.9 billion in 4,265 deals transacted at the midweek session.
A breakdown indicated that Transcorp remained the most active stock as it traded 165.2 million units worth N225.9 million yesterday and was trailed by GTCO, which sold 22.2 million units valued at N493.1 million.
UBA traded 19.1 million equities valued at N148.6 million, FBN Holdings exchanged 13.3 million stocks worth N135.2 million, while Zenith Bank transacted 12.6 million shares worth N290.7 million.
Investor sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, remained weak on Thursday as the bourse finished with 15 price gainers and 17 price losers.
C&I Leasing was the worst-performing equity as its value declined by 8.57 per cent to N3.20, FTN Cocoa lost 8.33 per cent to trade at 33 kobo, Ikeja Hotel fell by 3.23 per cent to N1.20, GlaxoSmithKline depleted by 2.74 per cent to N7.10, while Zenith Bank depreciated by 2.35 per cent to N22.85.
Conversely, University Press ended the session as the best-performing stock with a price appreciation of 9.43 per cent to trade at N2.90, Cornerstone Insurance gained 8.93 per cent to sell for 61 kobo, Ellah Lakes improved by 7.89 per cent to N3.69, International Breweries rose by 4.23 per cent to N7.40, while Regency Assurance advanced by 3.70 per cent to 28 kobo.
Adedapo Adesanya