By Dipo Olowookere
The sustained sell pressure on Nigerian stocks further weakened prices of equities at the local market on Wednesday.
It was observed that investors further booked profit on some shares, which have gained in the past few sessions, leaving the market with a 0.28 per cent deep cut as only seven stocks appreciated in value compared with the 23 price losers.
Okomu Oil was the leader of the decliners’ gang yesterday, losing N1 to sell for N78 per share, while Unilever Nigeria followed with a 60 kobo loss to settle at N14.40 per share.
Zenith Bank fell by 50 kobo to close at N16.40 per unit, C&I Leasing depreciated by 35 kobo to settle at N3.55 per unit, while UAC Nigeria declined by 30 kobo to trade at N6 per share.
On the flip side, Fidson topped the gainers’ log at the session after adding 27 kobo to its share price to quote at N3.98 per share, while PZ Cussons appreciated by 25 kobo to sell for N4.25 per share.
Custodian Investment improved by 15 kobo to close at N4.95 per unit, Lafarge Africa gained 10 kobo to trade at N12.15 per share, while FCMB gained 6 kobo to quote at N2.26 per share.
At the midweek trading session, the volume of shares traded by investors rose by 7.01 per cent to 269.6 million from 252.0 million, while the value of trades jumped by 40.48 per cent to N2.9 billion from N2.0 billion, with the number of deals declining by 0.72 per cent to 4,155 deals from 4,185 deals.
Zenith Bank was the most traded stock on Wednesday, selling 35.8 million units worth N592.1 million, while FBN Holdings transacted 33.4 million shares valued at N166.9 million.
UBA transacted 29.8 million equities valued at N182.6 million, GTBank exchanged 24.9 million stocks for N605.1 million, while Access Bank sold 19.2 million shares for N126.3 million.
Business Post reports that apart from the industrial goods sector, which grew by 0.05 per cent yesterday, every other performance indicators closed in the red region.
The banking space lost 1.54 per cent, the insurance sector depreciated by 0.39 per cent, the consumer goods counter fell by 0.19 per cent, while the energy index decreased by 0.11 per cent.
Also, the All-Share Index (ASI) depreciated by 72.41 points to 25,424.91 points from 25,497.32 points, while the market capitalisation reduced by N38 billion to N13.264 trillion from N13.302 trillion.
