By Dipo Olowookere
A 0.07 per cent decline occurred at the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Wednesday as a result of selling pressure across the major sectors of the market.
The key performance indicators closed mixed at midweek, with the All-Share Index (ASI) down by 64.41 points to 95,831.51 points from 95,895.92 points and the market capitalisation up by 1.10 per cent or N600 billion to N55.048 trillion from N54.448 trillion due to the supplementary listing of the International Breweries’ additional rights issue.
Business Post reports that apart from the industrial goods sector, which improved by 0.07 per cent, every other sector closed lower yesterday.
It was observed that profit-taking slipped the banking index by 0.30 per cent, weakened the insurance space by 0.10 per cent, brought down the energy counter by 0.08 per cent, and sank the consumer goods sector by 0.02 per cent.
Despite the loss, investor sentiment was bullish, with 27 price gainers and 18 price losers, indicating a negative market breadth index.
University Press ended the session as the worst-performing yesterday after it shed 9.40 per cent to N2.41, Oando lost 8.66 per cent to trade at N39.55, NASCON fell by 8.39 per cent to N32.20, May and Baker depreciated by 5.41 per cent to N7.00, and C&I Leasing slipped by 5.08 per cent to N2.80.
Conversely, Ikeja Hotel finished the session as the best-performing stock after it gained 10.00 per cent to settle at N7.70, RT Briscoe grew by 9.76 per cent to N2.25, Cutix grew by 9.66 per cent to N3.18, Tantalizers increased by 9.62 per cent to 57 Kobo, and Thomas Wyatt rose by 6.96 per cent to N1.69.
A total of 360.6 million shares worth N7.3 billion exchanged hands in 8,813 deals on Wednesday compared with the 1.0 billion shares worth N7.7 billion transacted in 8,295 deals in the preceding day, representing an increase in the number of deals by 6.24 per cent and a decrease in the trading volume and value by 64.44 per cent and 5.20 per cent, respectively.
Oando finished the day as the busiest equity after selling 66.2 million units for N2.7 billion, GTCO exchanged 45.8 million units for N2.1 billion, Cutix transacted 29.4 million units worth N93.1 million, Universal Insurance traded 25.4 million units valued at N7.8 million, and FCMB traded 21.2 million units for N161.3 million.