By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Weak investors’ sentiments observed on the trading floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday triggered the return of bears to the market.
The stock market depreciated by 0.46 percent at the close of transactions today influenced mainly by profit-taking.
This put an end to the positive trading sessions experienced at the NSE on Wednesday and Thursday with the weak sentiment spreading to the market breadth, which closed negative with 33 losers compared with 18 gainers.
Nestle led the decliners after going down by N9 to settle at N901 per share, and was closely trailed by 7up, which deflated by N4.55k to end at N86.45k per share.
Unilever weakened by N3.98k to finish at N36.87k per share, Forte Oil lost N2.63k to close at N50.7k per share, and Julius Berger fell by N1.97k to end at N37.48k per share.
On the other hand, Total Plc chalked up N7.90k to settle at N280 per share, while Nigerian Breweries added N2.28k to finish at N161 per share.
Ecobank gained 66k to close at N13.97k per share, Stanbic IBTC progressed by 56k to close at N33 per share, and Cadbury advanced by 35k to end at N14 per share.
An analysis of the market indicators showed that the benchmark index (All-Share Index) shed 152.36 points to close at 33,117.48 points, while the market capitalisation depressed by N53 billion to settle at N11.45 trillion, and the year-to-date return trimmed to 23.23 percent.
Business Post correspondent reports that interest in financial stocks persisted at the market today with Diamond Bank catching the interest of investors, accounting for 40.3 units sold for N50.9 million.
It was followed by Access Bank, which traded 31.2 million shares valued at N295.5 million, and Niger Insurance, which exchanged 29.2 million units at N14.6 million.
Transcrop transacted 28 million shares for N40.7 million, while UBA exchanged 23.3 million worth N209.9 million.
At the close of trading activities on the floor of the NSE on Friday, investors traded a total of 346 million shares valued at N3.4 billion executed in 4,797 deals.
This was slightly lower than what was achieved the previous; 439.2 million shares exchanged in 4,594 deals worth N4.8 billion.
