By Adedapo Adesanya
The first trading session of the new month of March 2021 closed on a negative note on the floor of the NASD over-he-counter Securities Exchange on Monday, March 1.
The unlisted securities market was down by 0.77 per cent yesterday as investors continue to watch happenings in the country and the market from the sidelines before taking any action.
The recent news that one of the big boys on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), 11 Plc (formerly Mobil Oil Nigeria) was planning to join the NASD could not sway investors at the market during and things still remained bearish like in the past session despite a positive movement in the price of a stock on the exchange.
Business Post reports that the share price of FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc closed higher by 85 kobo or 0.7 per cent from N119.43 per unit to N120.28 per unit.
Despite this, the market capitalisation of the NASD OTC Exchange suffered a N3.28 billion loss to close at N508.26 billion compared to N512.24 billion it ended last Friday.
For the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI), it went down by 5.52 points to close at 708.39 points as against 713.91 points of the previous trading session.
On the activity chart, the volume of securities exchanged at the bourse surged by 8,863 per cent as investors traded a total of 378,275 units as against 4,220 units traded a day before.
Also, the value of transactions skyrocketed by 13,576.46 per cent as all traded securities amounted to N43.9 million compared to N321, 600 on record last Friday.
In the same pattern, there was an improvement in the number of deals traded on Monday by 50 per cent as nine deals were executed at the Exchange against the six deals published at the preceding session.
Eight of these deals were executed on FrieslandCampina, while the remaining one deal was carried out on Central Securities Clearing Systems (CSCS) Plc.
The most active stock at the close of business at the NASD by volume (year to date) was still UBN Property Plc with 15.5 million units valued at N16.8 billion. CSCS Plc was in second place with 4.7 million units worth N73.5 million, while FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc held the third position with 2.7 million units worth N328.8 million.
But by value (year-to-date) FrieslandCampina WAMCO was the most traded stock with 2.7 million units valued at N328.8 million, Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) Plc trailed with 604,249 units worth N196 million, while CSCS Plc has traded 4.7 million units worth N73.5 million.
Dipo Olowookere