The Nigerian stock market recorded its first negative close this week on Wednesday as investors gradually picked profiting major gainers.
The market moved into the negative territory as investors hooked on mostly the banking, consumer goods and Industrial stocks despite bargain hunting in insurance and oil and gas stocks.
At the end of the trading session, the market decreased by 0.13 percent moderating the year-to-date return to 41.72 percent while this month’s return dropped down to 4.29 percent.
The All-Share Index of listed equities depreciated by 191.09 point, representing a 0.13 percent drop to close at 145,864.78 basis points lower than the 146,055.89 of the previous day.
Consequently, the market capitalisation declined to N92.3 trillion compared to Tuesday’s ₦92.4 trillion.
The market sentiment when measured by market breadth however, ended positive with 53 gainers and 21 losers.
On price movement, the share prices of FTN Cocoa, LEARNAFRCA, Prestige, RTBRISCOE and CAVERTON appreciated by 10 percent respectively.
Leading the laggards was Thomaswy with a 10 percent drop on its share price to close at N 3.42k, UPDC followed with an 8.69 percent loss on its share price to N8.00k then; LEGENDINT recorded a 5.98 percent decline to close at N5.60k per share.
In 30,737 deals investors exchanged 1 billion units of shares valued at N20.2 billion.
Victoria Ibanga