By Dipo Olowookere
The local stock market suffered a loss on Tuesday following profit-taking in some of the value equities like Lafarge Africa, UBA, Zenith Bank, MTN Nigeria and 13 others.
The sell-off witnessed in these shares weakened the market by 0.10 per cent yesterday as the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited reduced by 38.50 points to 39,801.78 points from the previous 39,840.28 points.
Similarly, the market capitalisation decreased during the session N17 billion to finish at N20.830 trillion as against N20.847 trillion it ended last Friday.
Business Post reports that Linkage Assurance closed the day as the worst-performing stock as its value went down by 13.11 per cent to 53 kobo.
Regency Alliance Insurance depreciated by 9.09 per cent to 30 kobo, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance fell by 7.69 per cent to 36 kobo, Sterling Bank went down by 7.50 per cent to N1.48, while Lafarge Africa declined by 5.20 per cent to N20.05.
On the flip side, Lasaco Assurance ended the session as the best-performing stock with a price appreciation of 9.86 per cent to settle at N1.56.
Neimeth gained 9.83 per cent to sell for N1.90, International Breweries improved by 9.62 per cent to N5.70, Courtville rose by 8.70 per cent to 25 kobo, while Royal Exchange gained 7.55 per cent to sell for 57 kobo.
The consumer goods sector appreciated by 0.76 per cent yesterday and it was the only riser as the insurance counter dropped 1.27 per cent, the industrial goods space lost 0.57 per cent, the banking sector went down by 0.32 per cent, while the energy index dropped 0.13 per cent.
It was observed that the level of activity improved on Tuesday as the trading volume rose by 34.27 per cent to 426.5 million shares from 317.7 million shares last Friday.
Also, the trading value increased by 56.26 per cent to N4.7 billion from N3.0 billion, while the number of deals jumped by 30.09 per cent to 5,616 deals from 4,317 deals.
FBN Holdings was the most traded stock with 79.6 million units of its shares sold for N575.0 million and was trailed by Access Bank, which exchanged 64.9 million units valued at N479.0 million.
Zenith Bank sold 58.0 million equities for N1.3 billion, Lafarge Africa transacted 28.7 million stocks valued at N627.9 million, while FCMB traded 25.7 million shares worth N74.7 million.
