Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
Trading activities were bearish on Thursday, no thanks to the banking and energy sectors, which weakened the market further by 0.07 per cent.
Sell-offs in the aforementioned sectors kept the bears in control of the market despite the efforts made by the consumer and insurance sectors to bring back the bulls.
The insurance and consumer goods sectors grew by 1.28 per cent and 0.07 per cent respectively, but the 0.36 per cent decline by the banking sector and the 0.19 per cent fall by the energy sector left investors in a bad state. The industrial goods counter was flat yesterday.
As a result of the domineering power of the bears, the All-Share Index (ASI) was reduced by 16.96 points to 25,533.35 points from 25,550.31 points, while the market capitalisation was shortened by N9 billion to N13.344 trillion from N13.353 trillion.
Dangote Sugar was the heaviest price decliner of the day, losing 70 kobo to close at N11.20 per share and was trailed by Custodian Investment, which lost 25 kobo to sell for N4.55 per unit.
Caverton depreciated by 16 kobo to quote at N1.70 per share, Ecobank went down by 10 kobo to sell for N3.95 per share, while FBN Holdings declined by 5 kobo to finish at N4.90 per share.
On the gainers’ chart, International Breweries topped with a price appreciation of 30 kobo to settle at N3.30 per share and was followed by Flour Mills, which gained 30 kobo to finish at N19.80 per unit.
Cadbury Nigeria also gained 30 kobo to sell for N7.40 per share, NPF Microfinance Bank appreciated by 10 kobo to end at N1.30 per unit, while GTBank moved up by 5 kobo to N25 per share.
The activity chart was mixed yesterday with the trading volume rising by 9.15 per cent and the trading value and number of deals down by 13.34 per cent and 7.97 per cent respectively.
A total of 231.2 million shares worth N2.1 billion exchanged hands in 3,360 deals on Thursday compared with the 211.8 million stocks worth N2.4 billion transacted in 3,651 deals on Wednesday.
FBN Holdings was the most traded stock with 33.5 million units sold for N165.4 million and was trailed by Access Bank, which traded 30.4 million shares for N200.1 million.
Zenith Bank transacted 25.1 million equities worth N418.0 million, FCMB exchanged 20.6 million stocks valued at N42.1 million, while GTBank traded 20.3 million shares for N506.3 million.
