By Dipo Olowookere
The decision of investors to sell some of their stocks, which had recorded price appreciation in the last two trading sessions, had a negative effect on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday.
At the midweek trading session, profit-taking were witnessed around equities in the energy, insurance, consumer goods and industrial goods, with the first two the most hit.
Only the banking sector finished strong yesterday, closing 0.11 percent higher. But the energy space went down by 1.43 percent, insurance by 1.01 percent, industrial goods by 0.95 percent and consumer goods by 0.40 percent.
Business Post reports that the poor performances of these four sectors weakened the market by 0.44 percent to increase the year-to-date loss to 16.14 percent at the close of transactions.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) reduced by 117.28 points to 26,339.11 points from 26,456.39 points, while the market capitalisation went down by N57 billion to N12.822 trillion from N12.879 trillion.
Total Nigeria was the heaviest price loser yesterday, going down by N12.30 to close at N110.90 per unit, while Dangote Cement depreciated by N2.20 to finish at N145 per unit.
Unilever Nigeria declined by N1.10 to close at N18.50 per share, GTBank fell by 70 kobo to end at N28 per unit, while PZ Cussons fell by 55 kobo to settle at N5 per unit.
On the gainers’ chart, Guinness Nigeria took the juiciest spot after appreciating by 40 kobo to close at N23.70 per share, while Zenith Bank claimed the second position with a price appreciation of 40 kobo to finish at N17.80 per share.
Access Bank gained 30 kobo to close at N9.85 per unit, FBN Holdings improved by 10 kobo to end at N5.70 per share, while Vitafoam also gained 10 kobo to finish at N3.65 per share.
Despite the loss posted by the market yesterday, the level of activity improved with the volume of transactions rising by 61.38 percent, the value of trades increasing by 55.31 percent and the number of deals growing by 4.86 percent.
A total of 610.6 million shares worth N11.1 billion were traded on Wednesday in 5,031 deals compared with the 378.4 million equities worth N7.2 billion transacted the previous session in 4,798 deals.
Zenith Bank was the most traded stock at the market yesterday, closing with a turnover of 336.6 million units of its shares sold for N5.8 billion.
Access Bank traded 73.8 million shares worth N714.2 million, Nigerian Breweries transacted 63.8 million stocks valued at N3.0 billion, GTBank sold 24.3 million equities worth N695.6 million, while UBA exchanged 16.4 million shares for N110.8 million.
Adedapo Adesanya