Profit-Taking Drains Nigerian Equity Market by 0.07%

By Dipo Olowookere

For the second straight session, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited ended in the negative territory after it depreciated by 0.07 per cent on Wednesday.

Sustained profit-taking in industrial goods stocks like Lafarge Africa and Berger Paints and a few financial equities like Access Holdings and FBN Holdings contributed to the decline.

This weakened the All-Share Index (ASI) by 35.28 points to 52,721.34 points from 52,756.62 points and dragged the market capitalisation downward by N19 billion to N28.423 trillion from N28.442 trillion.

A look at the sectorial performance showed that the industrial goods sector depreciated yesterday by 0.19 per cent, while the insurance, consumer goods, energy and banking sectors appreciated by 0.81 per cent, 0.29 per cent, 0.19 per cent and 0.10 per cent respectively.

Business Post reports that investor sentiment remained weak at the midweek session as there were 23 depreciating stocks and 21 appreciating stocks, indicating a negative market breadth.

Academy Press was the worst-performing stock as its value went down by 9.93 per cent to N1.36, Berger Paints dropped 8.86 per cent to N7.20, Neimeth fell by 8.57 per cent to N1.60, May and Baker declined by 8.51 per cent to N4.30, while Wema Bank contracted by 7.61 per cent to N3.28.

On the flip side, McNichols maintained its upward trajectory and further gained 9.94 per cent to trade at N1.77, Transcorp Hotels appreciated by 9.84 per cent to N5.36, Champion Breweries improved by 7.03 per cent to N3.96, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance rose by 6.56 per cent to 65 kobo, while Multiverse gained 4.76 per cent to finish at 22 kobo.

FBN Holdings ended the trading day as the most active equity, exchanging 153.3 million units valued at N1.9 billion and was trailed by Jaiz Bank, which traded 116.6 million units worth N104.5 million.

GTCO traded 65.9 million equities valued at N1.6 billion, FCMB exchanged 43.5 million shares worth N152.2 million, while Transcorp sold 40.7 million stocks for N57.9 million.

When compared with the preceding session, the level of activity was lower across all the three parameters as the trading volume dropped 53.77 per cent to 612.0 million units from 1.3 billion units, the trading value went down by 3.86 per cent to N7.4 billion from N7.7 billion, while the number of trades decreased by 7.77 per cent to 5,948 deals from 6,449 deals.