The Nigerian equities market sustained prior day’s downtrend yesterday, as more bluechip stocks prices shed some weight, resulting to a further slide in market capitalisation by N2billion.
Precisely, at the close of transactions Wednesday, the ASl decreased by 4.55 absolute points, representing a decline of 0.02 per cent to close at 29,458.21 points, Similarly, the overall market capitalisation size decreased by N2billion, to close at N15.174 trillion.
The downturn was impacted by loses recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which were, Julius Berger, Flour Mills of Nigeria, NASCON Allied Industries (NASCON), Lafarge Africa, and Zenith Bank.
Capital market analysts linked yesterday’s decline to continued profit-taking on high cap stocks as investors leveraged the marginal price appreciation recorded in the last few days to recoup their investment.
Analysts at Afrinvest Limited predicted that bargain-hunting would dominate the market in the near term.Market breadth closed positive, recorded 15 gainers against 18 losers. Law Union and Rock Insurance led the gainers table by 10 per cent to close at 60 kobo per share.
Aiico Insurance followed with 8.64 per cent to close at 88 kobo, while Honeywell Flour Mills rose by 8.33 per cent to close at N1.17, per share.Cutix gained 5.15 per cent to close at N1.43, and Abbey Mortgage Bank rose 5.0 per cent to close at N1.05, per share. On the other hand, Julius Berger led the laggards’ table with 6.76 per cent to close at N20 per share.
NASCON trailed with a loss of 4.46 per cent to close at N15.00, and Courteville Business Solutions shed 4.17 per cent to close at 23 kobo, per share.Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp) dipped 3.74 per cent to close at N1.03, while Lasaco Assurance went down 3.70 per cent to close at 26 kobo per share.
However, total volume traded rose by 15.7 per cent to 315.67 million shares valued at N3.64 billion, exchanged in 4,392 deals. Transactions in the shares of Austin Laz and Company topped the activity chart with 85 million shares valued at N174.41 million.
Access Bank traded 60.52 million shares worth N600.92 million, and Guaranty Trust Bank transacted 26.46 million shares valued at N849.98 million. Zenith Bank sold 25.73 million shares worth N564.76 million, while United Bank for Africa (UBA) traded 16.86 million shares valued at N144.05 million.
