By Dipo Olowookere
The stock market in Nigeria slipped back to the negative territory on Friday after staying in the green zone for two straight sessions.
The market depreciated by 0.20 per cent on the last trading day of the week as a result of profit-taking in some value and penny stocks like MTN Nigeria, Stanbic IBTC, FTN Cocoa, Jaiz Bank, amongst others.
At the close of business, the activities of profit-takers reduced the All-Share Index (ASI) by 76.94 points to 39,216.20 points from 39,293.14 points and sliced the market capitalisation by N40 billion to N20.518 trillion from N20.558 trillion.
For the performance of the benchmark sectors, the consumer goods, banking and industrial goods counters rose by 0.51 per cent, 0.48 per cent and 0.08 per cent respectively, while the insurance and energy sectors depreciated by 0.39 per cent and 0.20 per cent respectively.
A total of 250.9 million shares worth N2.8 billion were traded in 3,746 deals yesterday compared with the 229.4 million equities worth N3.8 billion exchanged in 4,016 deals the previous day, signifying a 9.37 per cent rise in the trading volume, 26.21 per cent decline in the trading value and 6.72 per cent slump in the number of deals.
For another session, Union Bank closed as the most traded stock with the sale of 79.2 million units valued at N419.9 million and was again followed by Zenith Bank with the sale of 21.0 million units worth N462.0 million.
GTBank traded 19.8 million stocks for N619.6 million, Guinness Nigeria exchanged 12.6 million equities worth N372.1 million, while UBA transacted 10.3 million shares for N67.0 million.
On the price movement chart, FTN Cocoa was the heaviest price loser as its value went down by 9.80 per cent to close at 46 kobo.
Jaiz Bank depreciated by 9.23 per cent to 59 kobo, Royal Exchange dropped 7.69 per cent to 24 kobo, Coronation Insurance (Wapic) lost 7.27 per cent to trade at 51 kobo, while African Alliance Insurance declined by 4.76 per cent to 20 kobo.
On the flip side, Guinness Nigeria was the biggest price gainer on Friday after its equity value improved by 9.89 per cent to N30.
Prestige Assurance gained 9.76 per cent to trade at 45 kobo, Sovereign Trust Insurance grew by 9.09 per cent to 24 kobo, UAC Nigeria appreciated by 8.75 per cent to N8.70, while ABC Transport went up by 7.14 per cent to 30 kobo.
Adedapo Adesanya