Stocks Shed 0.35% as Flour Mills, GSK, Others Fall

By Dipo Olowookere

Profit-taking continued on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Tuesday, with the bourse shedding 0.35 per cent at the close of transactions.

The decline occurred amid a resurgence of negative investor sentiment as the market breadth was bearish with 21 price gainers and 27 price losers led by Flour Mills, which fell by 9.20 per cent to N37.00.

GlaxoSmithKline went down by 8.39 per cent to N6.55, NPF Microfinance Bank dropped 8.02 per cent to N1.95, Japaul depreciated by 6.25 per cent to 30 kobo, while Champion Breweries slacked by 6.09 per cent to N3.70.

On the flip side, PZ Cussons topped the gainers’ chart after it gained 9.96 per cent to close at N13.25, Berger Paints rose by 9.72 per cent to N7.90, Northern Nigerian Flour Mills improved by 9.63 per cent to N11.95, McNichols appreciated by 9.52 per cent to N1.61, while Abbey Mortgage Bank grew by 9.49 per cent to N1.50.

Only the industrial goods counter closed higher yesterday as it gained 0.05 per cent. The consumer goods, banking, energy and insurance sectors lost 0.54 per cent, 0.39 per cent, 0.31 per cent and 0.21 per cent respectively.

At the close of trades, the All-Share Index (ASI) went down by 187.47 points to 52,756.62 points from 52,944.09 points, while the market capitalisation reduced by N101 billion to N28.442 trillion from N28.543 trillion.

Business Post reports that the volume of trades rose by 253.76 per cent to 1.3 billion from 374.2 million, the value of transactions increased by 55.62 per cent to N7.7 billion from N5.0 billion, while the number of deals went down by 5.91 per cent to 6,449 deals from 6,854 deals.

The significant increase in the trading volume was due to an off-market deal in FCMB yesterday and it topped the chart with the sale of 775.1 million units of stocks valued at N3.0 billion.

Jaiz Bank transacted 172.2 million shares worth N151.8 million, Transcorp sold 140.1 million stocks valued at N202.1 million, GTCO exchanged 50.4 million equities worth N1.2 billion, while International Breweries traded 21.0 million shares valued at N165.1 million.