By Yahaya Umar
First trading session of the new week on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange, NGX, Limited closed marginally lower by 0.01 per cent.
This was influenced by the losses posted by some large and mid-cap tickets at the local bourse, particularly in the financial services and industrial goods sectors.
Although the 1.82 per cent growth reported by the consumer goods space, the 1.56 per cent decline by the banking counter, the 0.71 per cent fall in the insurance space, and the 0.08 per cent drawback in the industrial goods sector weakened Nigerian stocks at the close of transactions. The energy sector, on its part, closed flat yesterday.
Consequently, the All-Share Index, ASI, went down by 6.14 points to 55,788.37 points from 55,794.51 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N4 billion to settle at N30.391 trillion versus the preceding session’s N30.395 trillion.
Investor sentiment remained weak due to a negative market breadth triggered by the exchange closing with 21 depreciating stocks and 12 appreciating equities.
University Press was the best-performing stock after it gained 9.89 per cent to quote at N2.00, CWG rose by 7.69 per cent to 98 Kobo, Multiverse increased by 5.04 per cent to N3.75, BUA Foods appreciated by 4.21 per cent to N99.00, and Regency Alliance improved by 3.45 per cent to 30 Kobo.
On the flip side, the worst-performing stock was NGX Group as it depreciated by 9.72 per cent to N26.00, NPF Microfinance Bank shed 8.47 per cent to N1.73, Courteville weakened by 6.25 per cent to 45 Kobo, Linkage Assurance declined by 4.35 per cent to 44 Kobo, and Royal Exchange went down by 3.95 per cent to 73 Kobo.
A total of 179.0 million shares worth N2.6 billion in 4,296 deals compared with the 276.0 million shares worth N8.6 billion traded in the preceding session in 3,467, indicating a decline in the trading volume and value by 35.15 per cent and 69.77 per cent, and an increase in the number of deals by 23.91 per cent.
NGX Group was the most active share as it transacted 38.2 million units, Transcorp traded 19.7 million units, Sterling Bank exchanged 15.9 million units, Zenith Bank sold 14.8 million units, and UBA traded 13.7 million units.