Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited depreciated by 1.81 per cent or 698.23 points on Tuesday to finish at 37,847.07 points as against 38,545.30 points it ended a day earlier.
This was majorly caused by the actions of profit takers, who pounced on the market to offload some stocks that have gained in the past few trading sessions.
This also affected the market capitalisation of the stock exchange, which reduced by N364 billion to finish at N19.725 trillion compared with N20.089 trillion it ended on Monday.
Business Post reports that the market breadth closed negative yesterday with 17 price gainers and 23 price losers led by Airtel Africa, which lost 10.00 per cent to close at N678.00.
Mutual Benefits Assurance went down by 7.32 per cent to trade at 38 kobo, Cornerstone Insurance declined by 7.27 per cent to 51 kobo, Learn Africa depreciated by 648 per cent to N1.01, while Ikeja Hotel fell by 6.19 per cent to 91 kobo.
On the other side, Fidson shook off the bad performance of Monday to close as the best-performing stock by rising by 10.00 per cent to N5.06.
Vitafoam gained 9.68 per cent to trade at N13.60, Red Star Express appreciated by 9.55 per cent to N3.67, Veritas Kapital improved by 9.09 per cent to 24 kobo, while Courtville gained 5.00 per cent to quote at 21 kobo.
The most traded stock of the day was Transcorp as it sold 42.4 million shares valued at N37.2 million. Vitafoam traded 20.1 million equities worth N271.6 million, Dangote Sugar exchanged 17.6 million stocks for N312.1 million, FBN Holdings sold 12.4 million equities valued at N88.5 million, while Access Bank traded 11.5 million shares for N98.4 million.
At the close of business, investors traded a total of 218.3 million stocks worth N2.7 billion in 3,524 deals compared with the 209.2 million equities worth N1.8 billion transacted in 3,390 deals on Monday, indicating increases in the trading volume by 4.33 per cent, trading value by 54.59 per cent and the number of deals by 3.95 per cent.
In terms of the performance of the sectors yesterday, the energy and consumer goods sectors appreciated by 0.05 per cent and 002 per cent respectively, while the industrial goods, insurance and banking counters depreciated by 1.13 per cent, 0.39 per cent and 0.07 per cent apiece.
