Sell pressures dominated Wednesday’s trading session on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as market capitalisation fell by N113 billion due to unrest in the nation’s economy.
This is even as 34 stocks depreciated in value as investors booked gains from MTNN, GUINNESS and ARDOVA. As a result, the All-Share index declined by 0.75 per cent to 28,449.49 points while year-to-date (YTD) return weakened to 6.0 per cent.
Royal Exchange Plc topped the losers’ chart with 8 per cent to close at 0.23 kobo per share. Neimeth was next with 7.57 per cent to close at N1.71, Union Diagnostics dropped 7.41 per cent to close at 0.25 kobo, Lasaco fell by 7.14 per cent to close at 7.14 per cent to close at 0.26 kobo while UCAP dropped 7.03 per cent to close at N3.57.
On the other hand, Wapic topped the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at 0.44 kobo per share. Port Paints increased by 2.50 per cent to close at N2.05, UAC-Prop followed with 1.23 per cent to close at 0.82 kobo while Nigerian Breweries gained 0.97 per cent to close at N52.
Further analysis showed that activity level on the nation’s bourse improved as the volume and value of stocks traded rose by 9.8 and 44.3 per cent to 326.6 million units and N4.2 billion respectively, exchanged in 4,367 deals.
The most traded stocks by volume were UBA (40.3 million units), Zenith Bank(39.6 million units) and GT Bank (38.3 million units) while GT Bank (N1.1 billion), Zenith Bank (N800.9 million) and Nestle (N479.9 million) led by value. Reacting to the development, market watchers say they expect the equities market to close the week negative due to weak buying interests.
