Profit-taking continued to hold sway at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) during the midweek trading on Wednesday following sell-offs in WAPCO which shed -3.7 per cent and Tier I bank stocks.
As this weighed down the bourse, market price tracker, the All-Share Index (ASI) ended the session 0.19 per cent lower at 25,550.31 basis points, while market capitalization closed at N13.353 trillion.
Consequently, the Month-to-Date (MtD) gain moderated to 0.9 per cent while Year-to-Date (YtD) loss increased to -4.8 per cent.
Similarly, the market lost momentum during the session as the total volume traded declined by -13.6 per cent to 211.82 million share units, valued at N2.42 billion and exchanged hands in 3,651 deals.
FCMB was the most traded stock by volume at 30.33 million units while MTNN was the most trade stock by value at N1.06 billion.
Analyzing by sectors, the Oil & Gas and consumer goods indices gained 0.4 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively while losses were recorded in the Insurance, banking and industrial goods indices shed by -1.5 per cent, -0.6 ,per cent and -0.2 per cent.
Market sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, was negative as 17 tickers gained relative to 19 losers while 14 others that closed on unchanged prices.
On the gainers’ list, NB gained N0.95 to close at N42 per share. Berger followed with N0.45 to close at N6.5 per share and UBN added N0.35 to close at N5.35 per cent. CAP and UCAC each gained N0.10 to close at N17.10 N3.11 per share respectively.
On the flip side, Cadbury shed N0.65 to close at N7.10. WAPCO lost N0.50 per N13 per share and NEM shed N0.22 to close at N2.03 per share. INTBREW and ZenitthBank each shed N0.20 to close at N3 and 17 per share respectively.
