DUE to continued profit-taking on the local exchange, the return on the equity market has fallen below 23% year to date, with investors losing N196 billion on Thursday. Most of the day saw strong trading on the local stock exchange, but late profit-taking in BUAFOODS (-10.0 percent) and AIRTELAFRI (-1.2 percent) caused market capitalization to decline.
In particular, the market capitalization dropped from the N28.451 trillion announced on Wednesday to N28.255 trillion, a reduction of N196.40 billion. In a similar vein, the All-Share Index (ASI) fell from 52,775.40 points on Wednesday to 52,411.09 points, or 0.69 percent.
12 stocks made gains while 22 stocks made declines, resulting in negative market breadth. Linkage Assurance lead the gainers’ table, increasing by 9.80% to close at 56k per share, according to a study of the price movement chart.
JapaulGold increased by 6.90% to settle at 31k per share, while Courtville Business Solutions gained eight percent to close at 54k.
UPDC increased by 4.08 percent to conclude at N1.02 per share, while Chams increased by 4.17 percent to close at 25,000. Conoil, on the other hand, finished first on the list of losers, falling 10% to close at N28.80 per share.
ETranzact decreased by 9.96% to close at N2.44, while Bua Foods rose 9.97% to close at N53.75, topping the list of gainers. CWG and Eterna Oil had declines of 9.62% and 6.25%, respectively, to close at 94k and N7.50.
The market turnover also went up, from N2.36 billion to N2.37 billion. With 63.66 million shares worth at N97.45 billion exchanged, Sterling Bank was the talk of the market for the day. In the meantime, 17.34 million shares of Zenith Bank worth N382.57 million were traded.
The next account was from United Bank for Africa (UBA), which held 17.33 million shares valued N131.85 million. First Bank of Nigeria Holdings (FBNH) sold 10.3 million shares for N101.02 million while Transcorp swapped 16.17 million shares for N21.04 million.
A total of 211,62 million units of shares, worth N2.37 billion, were traded in transactions.
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