By Dipo Olowookere
For the third consecutive trading session, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited closed bearish on Friday following a 0.06 per cent influenced by sustained profit-taking.
The absence of a positive trigger left the market in the hands of the bears as investor bias remained negative with 20 price gainers and 19 price losers.
Royal Exchange suffered the highest decline during the session, losing 9.40 per cent to trade at N1.35 and was followed by McNichols, which fell by 9.09 per cent to trade at 70 kobo.
Lasaco Assurance depreciated by 8.85 per cent to sell for N1.03, Niger Insurance lost 8.00 per cent to finish at 23 kobo, while Chams declined by 4.55 per cent to 21 kobo.
On the flip side, John Holt ended the session as the biggest price riser, appreciating by 8.86 per cent to close at 86 kobo, Regency Assurance grew by 7.69 per cent to 42 kobo, Linkage Assurance improved by 7.41 per cent to 58 kobo, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance appreciated by 5.36 per cent to 59 kobo, while United Capital gained 5.30 per cent to sell for N13.90.
Business Post reports that FCMB ended the trading day as the busiest stock, trading 25.0 million shares valued at N84.5 million, with Zenith Bank trailing for trading 13.0 million equities worth N345.0 million.
FBN Holdings transacted 12.8 million shares valued at N142.1 million, United Capital transacted 10.2 million stocks worth N140.1 million, while Courteville exchanged 9.7 million equities for N5.8 million.
In all, a total of 179.3 million equities worth N2.1 billion exchanged hands in 4,654 deals on the last trading session of the week compared with the 243.4 million equities worth N6.9 million transacted in 7,056 deals on Thursday.
This indicated that the volume of shares transacted by investors went down by 26.33 per cent, the value of stocks traded by market participants declined by 69.12 per cent and the number of deals carried out by traders decreased by 34.04 per cent.
However, the performance of the five key sectors of the bourse did not reflect the general outcome of the market yesterday as the insurance counter grew by 0.60 per cent, the energy space rose by 0.24 per cent, the consumer goods index appreciated by 0.13 per cent, while the industrial goods counter closed flat.
It was only the banking landscape that closed bearish on Friday as it went down by 0.66 per cent.
When the market closed for the day by 2:30 pm, the All-Share Index (ASI) shrank by 27.46 points to 47,268.61 points from 47,296.07 points, while the market capitalisation declined by N15 billion to N25.475 trillion from N25.490 trillion.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka