Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
Despite the market breadth closing positive with 17 prices gainers and nine price losers on Tuesday, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) went down by 0.10 percent.
Business Post observed that the decline was caused by the poor performance put up by stocks in the consumer goods sector. The industry’s gauge depreciated by 2.17 percent yesterday.
Two of the other remaining four major sectors at the exchange closed positive, while the two others finished flat at the close of transactions.
The banking index rose by 1.27 percent, while the insurance followed with a 0.33 percent growth, with the energy and industrial goods sectors closing flat.
Nestle Nigeria was the day’s highest price loser. The stock went down by N49.90 to close at N1150 per unit, while MTN Nigeria followed with a N1.55 loss to finish at N124 per share.
Guinness Nigeria fell by 55 kobo to close at N23.30 per unit, UAC Property depreciated by 10 kobo to end at 97 kobo per share, while Honeywell Flour declined by 6 kobo to settle at 98 kobo per unit.
On the flip side, Stanbic IBTC closed at the highest price gainer after adding N2 to its share price to settle at N39 per unit, while Ecobank trailed with a price appreciation of 50 kobo to finish at N7 per share.
The trio of Access Bank, Zenith Bank and FBN Holdings gained 20 kobo each to close at N8.30, N17.35 and N5.50 respectively.
The level of activity was mixed on Tuesday with the volume of shares traded by investors decreasing by 17.36 percent to 304.3 million from 368.2 million, but the value of the transactions rising by 44.20 percent to N4.0 billion from N2.8 billion.
Law Union and Rock was the most active stock at the market yesterday. Investors traded 70.4 million units of the insurance company’s stocks for N29.6 million, while UBA followed with 51.8 million units sold for N335.4 million.
Zenith Bank exchanged 50.4 million shares valued at N877.1 million, GTBank transacted 26.0 million equities for N678.0 million, while Guinness Nigeria sold 18.8 million shares worth N438.6 million.
At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) reduced by 25.71 points to close at 26,375.35 points against the previous day’s 26,401.06 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N122.5 billion to finish at N12.839 trillion in contrast to N12.852 trillion it was on Monday.
