Equities suffer 2.61% decline as investors embark on profit taking

The Nigerian Equities Market reversed a five day positive move to lose 2.61 percent on Wednesday as investors embarked on profit taking activities.

The Market Capitalisation consequently lost N311 billion to close at N11.576 trillion while the All Share Index (ASI) ended the day 897.71 points lower at 33,477.89 basis points.

All sector indices except the NSE ASeM that added 0.16 percent, closed the day in red. The Industrial Index led the sector losers with a decline of 3.56 percent, this was followed by the NSE Banking Index that dropped 2.90 percent.

The NSE Pension fell 2.55 percent, Insurance index dropped 1.41 percent and Oil and Gas Index depreciated 0.53 percent.

Topping the day’s losers chart were PZ and Skye Bank that both declined of 5 percent each to close at N20.90 and 76 kobo per share. Cadbury trailed with a loss of 4.98 percent to close at N13.54 while ETI and Oando declined by 4.97 percent each to close at N14.53 per share.

ALSO SEE: GTBank, Access, others get 45% stake in Etisalat

On the other hand, Neimeth led the day’s gainers with an increase of 9.09 percent to close at 84 kobo per share. Conoil was next with an increase of 4.99 percent to close at N40.42. Cement Company of Northern Nigeria followed with a gain of 4.93 percent to close at 11.27, Vitafoam gained 4.80 percent to close at N2.84 per share and Honeywell Flour Mills appreciated 4.79 percent to close at N1.97 per share.

At the end of the day’s transactions volume of shares traded in 5,876 deals increased to 508.7 million shares compared to 392.2 million shares traded in 5411 deals on Tuesday. Value traded also increased to N6.4 billion from N4.2 billion traded on Tuesday.

Zenith Bank topped activity chart with 87.9 million shares traded worth N1.9 billion, Fidelity Bank was next with 55.4 million shares valued at N71.5 million and Guaranty Trust Bank exchanged 50.3 million shares worth N1.8 billion.

Diamond transacted 45.6 million shares at N55.7 million and UBA emerged the fifth most traded stock with 40.5 million shares valued at N336.8 million.