The bears are still dominant at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as the market capitalisation bowed to profit-taking, dropped by N174.37 billion after trading session on Wednesday.
Market capitalisation, which opened at N14.66 trillion on Wednesday, dipped by 1.19% to close at N14.48 trillion, indicating a N174.37 decline.
Also, the all-share index dipped by 1.19% to close at 28,093.76 index points compared to the opening index of 28,432.27. The downtrend was impacted by losses recorded in large and medium capitalised stocks, amongst which are Mobil, Dangote Cement, UACN, Vitafoam and Stanbic IBTC.
The market traded 350.21 million units of shares for a total of N4.28 trillion across 4,729 transactions. The market breadth was also negative with 18 gainers as against 21 losers.
Top gainers
Union Bank of Nigeria gained the most on the bourse yesterday with 9.85% to close at N7.25 followed by Law Union Insurance, which gained 9.52% to close at N0.92. Consolidated Hallmark Insurance gained 9.09% to close at N0.36; CAP Plc recorded 8.85% gain to close at N24.6 while Linkage Assurance plc closed the list with 8.77% gain to close at N0.62.
[READ MORE: Stock market dips further, as market cap drop by N52.1 billion on Tuesday)
Top losers
Conoil and Nascon Plc dipped 10% each to close at N18 and N13.5 respectively followed by Mobil (11 Plc), which lost 9.94% to close at N133.2. C&I Leasing lost 9.52% to close at N6.65 while GlaxoSmithKline rounded off the list with 8.26% loss to close at N5.
Top trades by volume
For the third consecutive trade sessions this week, Zenith Bank led the most actively traded stocks with recorded trades in 98.13 million units of shares valued at N1.87 billion across 796 deals. First Bank Holdings followed with trades in 47.13 million units of shares at N277.81 million across 500 deals.
FCMB traded heavily in 41.21 million units of shares at N79.05 million across 63 deals; UBA traded 21.68 million units of shares valued at N162.21 million across 262 deals while Ecobank transnational traded 19.86 million units of shares at N141.01 million across 105 deals.
