By Dipo Olowookere
Trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) further turned bearish on Tuesday as investors embarked on massive profit-taking.
The stock market had seen a series of positive runs in the previous sessions and some market participants felt it was time to cash-out and this wounded the bourse by 0.74 per cent at the close of transactions.
As a result, the share price of 50 companies listed on the exchange depreciated yesterday compared with the only nine firms that closed in green colour.
Business Post observed that all the key sectors of the market got battered by the bears, with the banking sector the worst-hit as a result of the 3.06 per cent decline it printed.
The insurance industry deflated by 2.26 per cent, the consumer goods index depreciated by 0.90 per cent, the oil/gas counter lost 0.52 per cent, while the industrial goods space fell by 0.51 per cent.
At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) went down by 314.11 points to settle at 42,043.79 points in contrast to 42,357.90 points of the preceding day, while the market capitalisation decreased by N164 billion to end at N21.994 trillion compared with Monday’s N22.158 trillion.
Nigerian Breweries and Lafarge Africa suffered the heaviest loss on Tuesday with a price depreciation of N2 each to settle at N61 per share and N28 per share respectively.
Ardova went down by N1.90 to sell at N17.15 per unit, BOC Gases depreciated by N1.51 to end at N13.61 per share, while Zenith Bank lost 85 kobo to finish at N26.30 per unit.
Conversely, Unilever Nigeria emerged the best-performing stock with a price appreciation of 70 kobo to finish at N14.20 per share.
Champion Breweries gained 34 kobo to sell at N3.76 per unit, eTranzact appreciated by 12 kobo to quote at N2.45 per share, Custodian Investment rose by 5 kobo to trade at N6.05 per unit, while Honeywell Flour grew by 2 kobo to finish at N1.45 per share.
On the activity chart, the trading volume reduced by 5.25 per cent to 556.0 million units from 586.8 million units, the trading value dropped 20.56 per cent to N4.8 billion from N6.0 billion, while the number of deals depreciated by 6.58 per cent to 7,110 deals from 7,611 deals.
Unusual trading activity was again witnessed around Union Bank, closing on Tuesday as the most active stock with the sale of 79.5 million shares worth N457.3 million.
Transcorp sold 52.7 million stocks valued at N54.2 million, FBN Holdings transacted 49.5 million equities for N361.7 million, Zenith Bank sold 38.6 million stocks worth N1.0 billion, while UBA traded 35.5 million shares valued at N314.8 million.
