By Dipo Olowookere
Sustained profit-taking weakened the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited by 0.02 per cent on Monday, leaving the All-Share Index (ASI) down by 6.16 points to 38,915.62 points from 38,921.78 points.
Also, the selling pressure further depleted the market capitalisation yesterday by N3 billion to settle at N20.276 trillion compared with the previous closing rate of N20.279 trillion.
According to data obtained by Business Post, SCOA Nigeria led the losers’ chart of 20 members with a price decline of 10.00 per cent to trade at N1.17.
Academy Press went down by 7.69 per cent to 36 kobo, UPDC lost 6.21 per cent to trade at N1.51, ABC Transport depreciated by 5.71 per cent to 33 kobo, while Oando dropped 4.09 per cent to sell at N4.45.
Conversely, Morison Industries led the gainers’ table of 18 members on Monday after its share price went up by 9.38 per cent to settle at N2.10.
Sovereign Trust Insurance appreciated by 8.00 per cent to sell for 27 kobo, Linkage Assurance grew by 5.26 per cent to 60 kobo, Fidelity Bank rose by 4.35 per cent to N2.40, while International Breweries gained 4.17 per cent to trade at N5.00.
As for the activity log, Universal Insurance was the most traded stock on the first trading day of the week with the sale of 19.5 million units valued at N3.9 million.
Fidelity Bank traded 19.3 million shares worth N46.5 million, FBN Holdings exchanged 16.7 million stocks for N125.0 million, Courtville sold 13.8 million equities valued at N3.9 million, while Access Bank transacted 13.5 million shares worth N125.1 million.
At the close of business, a total of 201.1 million equities worth N2.5 billion were traded in 3,340 deals on Monday as against the 154.6 million equities worth N2.3 billion transacted in 3,467 deals last Friday, indicating an increase in the trading volume and value by 30.11 per cent and 11.39 per cent respectively and a decline in the number of deals by 3.66 per cent.
In terms of the performance of the key sectors of the market, it was observed that the consumer goods and the banking counters improved yesterday by 0.20 per cent and 0.13 per cent respectively, while the oil/gas, industrial goods and insurance sectors depreciated by 0.74 per cent, 0.11 per cent and 0.08 per cent apiece.
