Local equities continue downward trend on profit taking
Trading on the floor of the Nigerian equities market continued on its losing streak for the second time this week, losing N4.642 trillion as sustained selling pressure across major sectors impacted negatively on the market performance.
Sell pressure across major heavyweight stocks such as BuaCement, MTN Nigeria, Oando, Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Aradel Plc, Zenith Bank, Transcorp, GTCO among others dragged the market to a bearish close.
This resulted in market capitalization of listed equities declining by 4.91 per cent to N89.884 trillion from N94.526 trillion it closed on Monday.
The NGX All Share Index also depreciated by 7,454 basis points to 141327.30 points from 148781.90 points traded the previous day.
The market breadth was negative with only four advancers against 62 decliners, bringing year to date return lower to 37.31 per cent.
Volume of shares traded increased by 291.602 million, representing 80.03 per cent as investors traded 655.953 million shares against 364.351 million traded the previous day. Valued trades rose by 158.87 per cent to settle at N29.389 billion from N11.353 billion recorded the previous day in 29558 deals.
A review of the trading for the day showed that NCR led gainers table with 9.82 per cent to close at N21.25 per unit, Berger Paint followed with a gain of 2.56 per cent to close at N36.00 per share, FCMB group gained 0.96 per cent to close at N10.50 per share, Mansard Insurance added 0.25 per cent to close at N12.10 per unit, International General Insurance closed flat at N2.50 per unit.
On the contrary, the market result showed that Nine equities declined with 10 per cent each at the close of trading on Tuesday.
Custodian Insurance, BuaCement and Academy Press declined by 10 per cent to close at N34.20, N162.00 and N6.75 per unit respectively.MTN Nigeria and Deap Capital also fell by 10 per cent to close respectively at N429.30 and N1.71 per unit.
