Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The market indices of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Monday further depreciated by 0.12 per cent on Monday on the back of profit-taking.
It was observed that the market was swayed southwards by the selloffs in Lafarge Africa, GTCO, PZ Cussons and eight others despite the gains posted by 21 equities led by FTN Cocoa.
Business Post reports that Lafarge depreciated by 5.29 per cent to trade at N21.50, PZ lost 4.17 per cent to sell at N5.75, Union Bank dropped 3.81 per cent to trade at N5.05, Eterna fell by 2.36 per cent to N6.20, while FCMB declined by 2.27 per cent to N3.02.
On the flip side, FTN Cocoa appreciated by 10.00 per cent to 44 kobo, Pharma Deko grew by 9.88 per cent to N1.89, Transcorp Hotels rose by 9.69 per cent to N4.30, Courtville went up by 9.68 per cent to 34 kobo, while Learn Africa moved up by 9.30 per cent to N1.41.
According to data from the exchange, four of the five key sectors of the major closed in red, with only the insurance space rising by 0.37 per cent.
The industrial goods sector fell by 0.32 per cent, the energy space lost 0.14 per cent, the consumer goods counter depreciated by 0.12 per cent, while the banking index dropped 0.07 per cent.
At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) reduced by 48.39 points to 39,434.69 points from 39,483.08 points, while the market capitalisation weakened by N25 billion to N20.546 trillion from N20.571 trillion.
During the trading day, the volume of shares transacted by investors decreased by 24.68 per cent to 211.3 million units from 280.6 million units, the value of the stocks reduced by 36.36 per cent to N2.0 billion from N3.2 billion, while the number of deals waned by 1.82 per cent to 3,939 deals from 4,012 deals.
The most active stock for the session was Chams as it sold 48.0 million units worth N10.6 million, GTCO traded 20.9 million units valued at N586.1 million, Honeywell Flour Mills exchanged 14.6 million units for N45.1 million, Courtville transacted 13.0 million units worth N4.3 million, while Wema Bank traded 10.3 million units valued at N9.0 million.
