By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) further depreciated on Wednesday amid sell-offs on many counters across different sectors of the market.
The equity market suffered a 0.26 percent loss at the close of trading today, pulling back the year-to-date returns to 6.55 percent.
For the market indices today, the All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 105.78 points to settle at 40,749.86 points, while the market capitalisation reduced by N38.2 billion to close for the day at N14.720 trillion.
The NSEIND and NSEOILG5 were the only sector indices which traded positive, with gains of 0.59 percent and 0.07 percent respectively.
However, the NSEBNK10 declined the most with a loss of 0.92 percent, followed by the NSEFBT10, 0.26 percent; and the NSEINS10, 0.63 percent.
Business Post reports that outcome of the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of year did not sway the direction of the market.
The committee, as anticipated by various observers, did not cut the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), but left at the current level of 14 percent.
According to Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, this was an unanimous decision of members of the committee.
Back to the stock market, the market breadth finished negative today with the market recording 18 price gainers and 27 price losers.
However, the market participation improved slightly with the volume of equities transacted improving by 9.76 percent, while the value rose by 8 percent.
A total of 401.4 million shares were traded on Wednesday in 5,370 deals worth N6.8 billion compared with the 365.7 million equities worth N6.3 billion exchanged on Tuesday in 4,173 deals
The most active stock of the day was FBN Holdings, which sold 70.8 million units worth N863.6 million.
It was followed by Zenith Bank, which traded 61.2 million equities for N1.7 billion, and Fidelity Bank, which exchanged 43.7 million shares valued at N109.8 million.
Access Bank traded 28.9 million equities valued at N332.4 million, while GTBank transacted 22.9 million shares for N992.4 million.
On the price movement chart, Forte Oil emerged the biggest price gainer after adding N1.10k to its share value to settle at N41.90k per share.
It was trailed by Stanbic IBTC, which rose by N1 to finish at N49 per share, and GTBank, which advanced by 90k to close at N44.30k per share.
Lafarge went up by 55k to end at N44 per share, while Access Bank also rose by 55k to settle at N11.80k per share.
On the flip side, Mobil Oil Nigeria emerged the heaviest price loser after going down by N2 to close at N183 per share.
Dangote Flour lost N1.45k to finish at N13.75k per share, while Ecobank went down by 65k to settle at N16.35k per share.
Flour Mills depreciated by 50k to end at N36.80k per share, while NASCON also fell by 50k to close at N21 per share.
Adedapo Adesanya