Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited returned to the bears’ zone on Wednesday with a 0.09 per cent as investors embarked on a selling spree.
A total of 20 equities closed on the losers’ chart yesterday compared with the 12 equities on the gainers’ table, indicating that the negative investor sentiment persisted.
Lasaco Assurance suffered the heaviest loss with a 9.40 per cent decline to settle at N1.06, followed by Sovereign Trust Insurance, which dropped 8.33 per cent to trade at 22 kobo.
Chams also depreciated by 8.33 per cent to sell for 22 kobo, Ardova went down by 7.53 per cent to quote at N13.50, while Linkage Assurance declined by 7.02 per cent to close at 53 kobo.
At the other side of the chart, the duo of Universal Insurance and Multiverse gained 10.00 per cent each to finish at 22 kobo and 22 kobo respectively, while Honeywell Flour rose by 9.78 per cent to N3.48, with Sterling Bank appreciating by 6.85 per cent to N1.56 and Coronation Insurance growing by 6.25 per cent to 51 kobo.
FBN Holdings was the most traded stock at the trading session, selling 58.6 million units valued at N614.8 million. Multiverse sold 32.1 million units worth N6.4 million, Mutual Benefits transacted 21.6 million units valued at N5.3 million, Sterling Bank sold 18.5 million units for N28.2 million, while Transcorp traded 16.0 million units for N16.1 million.
When the market closed for the session by 2:30 pm, a total of 292.9 million stocks worth N2.1 billion were bought and sold by investors in 4,899 deals as against the 319.0 million stocks worth N3.3 billion traded a day earlier in 5,492 deals.
This implied that the volume of shares, the value stocks and the number of deals carried out by market participants at the exchange on Wednesday depreciated by 8.16 per cent, 37.16 per cent and 10.80 per cent respectively.
Apart from the consumer goods space that closed flat at the midweek session, every other sector closed bearish with the energy counter leading with a 0.16 per cent loss. The banking index fell by 0.11 per cent, the industrial goods sector went down by 0.09 per cent, while the insurance space dropped by 0.07 per cent.
Business Post reports that as for the All-Share Index (ASI), it depreciated by 37.94 points to finish at 41,975.45 points in contrast to the previous day’s 42,013.39 points, while the market capitalisation dropped N19 billion to close at N21.906 trillion compared with N21.925 trillion it ended on Tuesday.
