By Dipo Olowookere
It was another disappointing performance on Wednesday at the trading floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as the market slightly finished lower despite President Muhammadu Buhari signing the much-awaited 2018 budget into law.
The stock market maintained its downward trajectory, closing 0.15 percent lower yesterday to reduce the Year-to-Date (YtD) gain to 0.95 percent.
Though there were a couple of bargain hunting activities at the market, they were not enough to save the stock exchange from closing in the red territory.
This was because there were profit taking activities at the market yesterday as investors sell off some large cap stocks in the banking, oil and gas sectors.
At the close of transactions, Seplat topped the 20 depreciating stocks recorded on Wednesday with N37.70k of its share value lost to close at N717.20k per share.
It was followed by Nigerian Breweries, which fell by N1.10k to finish at N109 per share, while CCNN went down by 80 kobo to end at N25.20k per share.
GTBank declined by 35 kobo to settle at N40.65k per share, while Custodian and Allied reduced by 26 kobo to close at N5.01k per share.
On the other hand, Forte Oil led the 23 appreciating stocks yesterday after rising by 65 kobo to close at N35.80k per share.
Eterna grew by 59 kobo to settle at N7.20k per share, while Zenith Bank went up by 50 kobo to finish at N26 per share.
Stanbic IBTC increased by 25 kobo to end at N49 per share, while Ecobank garnered 20 kobo to settle at N20.20k per share.
The market was a bit quiet on Wednesday with the volume and value of trades depreciating by 31.42 percent and 37.42 percent respectively.
A total of 267.8 million equities were transacted by investors yesterday in 4,786 deals worth N3.8 billion compared with the 390.5 million shares exchanged the previous day valued at N6.1 billion.
These trades were dominated by the Financial Services sector, which exchanged a total of 205.4 million shares valued at N2.7 billion.
It was followed by the Services sector, which transacted a total of 17.4 million equities valued at N46 million.
A further breakdown showed that Zenith Bank was the toast of investors on Wednesday, selling a total of 44.9 million units worth N1.2 billion.
It was followed by FBN Holdings, which traded 38.7 million shares valued at N411.8 million, and Access Bank, which sold 25.8 million equities for N266.7 million.
UBA exchanged 14.2 million shares valued at N151.7 million, while Transcorp transacted 13.6 million equities for N19.6 million.
Business Post reports that the All-Share Index (ASI) went down yesterday by 59.08 points to finish at 38,605.07 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N21 billion to settle at 13.985 trillion.
Adedapo Adesanya