By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited recorded its first loss in five consecutive trading sessions and first this week on Thursday after closing lower by 0.47 per cent.
The poor outcome was driven by profit-taking activities by investors, giving room for the bears to take control of Customs Street at the close of transactions.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) contracted by 463.86 points to 98,523.56 points from 98,987.42 points and the market capitalisation shrank by N267 billion to N56.615 trillion from N56.882 trillion.
Caverton ended on top of the losers’ table yesterday after it fell by 9.73 per cent to N2.97, Cadbury Nigeria lost 9.39 per cent to trade at N17.85, ABC Transport depreciated by 8.73 per cent to N1.15, McNichols went down by 7.89 per cent to N1.75, and Okomu Oil moderated by 7.63 per cent to N363.00.
On the other side of the coin, FTN Cocoa appreciated by 9.82 per cent to close at N1.79, Ellah Lakes went up by 9.80 per cent to N4.48, Deap Capital rose by 9.78 per cent to N1.01, Regency Alliance Insurance improved by 8.62 per cent to 63 Kobo, and RT Briscoe gained 8.11 per cent to N3.20.
At the close of trades, the bourse finished with 29 price gainers and 26 price losers, indicating a positive market breadth index and strong investor sentiment despite the sell-offs.
The sectorial performance showed that the banking sector crumbled by 0.40 per cent, the energy counter depreciated 0.13 per cent and the industrial goods space declined by 0.05 per cent, while the insurance index gained 0.57 per cent, with the consumer goods counter growing by 0.21 per cent.
Business Post reports that the trading volume, value, and number of deals decreased during the session by 42.91 per cent, 47.62 per cent, and 7.38 per cent, respectively.
This was because investors traded 344.4 million equities worth N6.6 billion in 9,005 deals on Thursday compared with the 603.3 million equities valued at N12.6 billion transacted in 9,723 deals at midweek.
The most traded stock for the day was UBA with 29.2 million units sold for N756.1 million, Access Holdings transacted 27.0 million units worth N526.1 million, Honeywell Flour exchanged 25.5 million units valued at N123,0 million, Sterling Holdings sold 25.3 million units for N124.0 million, and Zenith Bank traded 14.8 million units valued at N559.4 million.