By Dipo Olowookere
The bears chased out the bulls on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Wednesday, inflicting the first loss of the year on the bourse at the close of transactions.
Business Post reports that Customs Street crumbled by 1.40 per cent in the midweek session after staying in green territory for eight straight trading sessions, stretching from the last week of 2023.
It was observed that the loss suffered by the NGX yesterday was due to profit-taking activities by investors, particularly in the financial sector, as traders quickly liquidated some of the stocks in the ecosystem after gains in the past few weeks.
Analysis of the market data for the day showed that the banking counter went down by 7.97 per cent, the insurance space fell by 6.12 per cent, and the energy index depreciated by 0.40 per cent.
However, bargain-hunting activity remained as the consumer goods sector improved by 2.45 per cent and the industrial goods counter appreciated by 1.39 per cent.
At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) depleted by 1,167.46 points to 82,024.38 points from 83,191.84 points, and the market capitalisation went down by N639 billion to N44.885 trillion from N45.524 trillion.
Investor sentiment was strongly bearish yesterday after 62 equities ended on the losers’ table and 13 equities closed on the gainers’ chart, indicating a negative market breadth index.
The quintet of Caverton, Chams, May & Baker, FTN Cocoa, and Consolidated Hallmark lost 10.00 per cent each during the session to settle at N2.07, N2.16, N5.49, N1.98, and N1.35, respectively.
However, Cadbury Nigeria rose by 9.92 per cent to N19.95, Veritas Kapital gained 9.76 per cent to quote at 45 Kobo, Linkage Assurance grew by 8.70 per cent to N1.50, Transcorp Hotels appreciated by 7.24 per cent to N100.00, and Prestige Assurance went up by 6.00 per cent to 53 Kobo.
At the market on Wednesday, the volume of transactions increased by 14.29 per cent to 1.6 billion units from 1.4 billion units, the value of trades marginally grew by 2.83 per cent to N25.4 billion from N24.7 billion, and the number of deals rose by 17.96 per cent to 20,223 deals from 17,144 deals.
The most active stock for the session was Transcorp, which sold 117.6 million units valued at N1.5 billion, Access Holdings exchanged 116.7 million units for N3.3 billion, Sterling Holdings traded 116.3 million units worth N775.0 million, Jaiz Bank transacted 110.1 million units valued at N282.7 million, and AIICO exchanged 91.8 million units worth N127.9 million.
