Profit Taking Depresses Nigerian Equities by 0.58%

By Dipo Olowookere

Profit taking activities of investors on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) ensured that local equities closed lower by 0.58 percent on Wednesday.

It was observed that selloffs across the sectors reduced the All-Share Index (ASI) by 151.69 points to 26,223.66 points from 26,375.35 points and the market capitalisation by N73.8 billion to N12.766 trillion from N12.839 trillion.

At the midweek trading session, the market breadth closed negative with 12 price losers and 10 price gainers. Presco led the losers’ chart after going down by N3.80 to finish at N34.60 per unit.

Dangote Cement lost N1.60 to finish at N147.90 per share, Stanbic IBTC went down by N1.20 to close at N37.80 per unit, International Breweries fell by N1.10 to end at N10.25 per unit, while MTN Nigeria crashed by N1 to close at N123 per unit.

At the other end, GTBank finished as the highest price gainer after adding 20 kobo to its share value to settle at N26.25 per unit. The trio of Vitafoam, Access Bank and Flour Mills appreciated by 5 kobo each to close at N3.55, N8.35 and N15.20 respectively, while Cornerstone Insurance rose by 4 kobo to finish at 49 kobo per unit.

Business Post reports that the level of activity was weak yesterday as the volume of transactions went down by 23.68 percent to 232.2 million from 304.3 million, while the value reduced by 21.84 percent to N3.1 billion from N4.0 billion.

UBA emerged as the most active stock with 59.1 million units of its stocks sold for N371.5 million, while Access Bank followed with 45.6 million units worth N378.1 million.

Zenith Bank traded 26.5 million equities valued at N459.4 million, GTBank exchanged 19.7 million shares for N515.0 million, while Transcorp sold 13.0 million shares valued at N13.0 million.

Apart from the energy sector, which closed flat, every other sector closed in the red territory with the consumer goods space leading the pack with a 0.50 percent loss. The industrial goods sector went down by 0.45 percent, the banking space by 0.05 percent and the insurance index down by 0.03 percent.