Nigeria’s stock market closed Tuesday on a negative note, as Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index depreciated by 0.55 percent to close at 25,446.66 basis points from 25,587.09 basis points it opened for trading, bringing equities market performance year-till-date to -5 percent.
Consequently, the market capitalisation went down by N48.4 billion to close at N8.769 trillion from N8.818 trillion it closed on Monday.
The day’s trading statistics showed that, Caverton and Betaglass, led the gainers’ table of 14 companies with a growth of 5 percent each to close at 84 kobo and N31.50 per share respectively, Presco followed, having added 4.94 percent to close at N46.30, PharmaDeko gained 4.84 percent to close at N1.95 per share, while Mansard completed the top five gainers list with an appreciation of 4.83 percent to close at N1.52 per share.
On the flip side, energy group, Forte Oil, led the day’s 22 decliners with a loss of 6.47 percent to close at N56.82 per share, followed by Nestle, which shed 5 percent to close at N646 per share, PZ Nigeria depreciated by 4.97 percent to close at N12.23 per share, while International Breweries and NASCON dropped 4.94 percent each to close at N16.15 and N7.51 per share respectively.
Diamond Bank emerged the most traded equity on Tuesday with an exchange of 31.5 million shares worth N27 million.
It was trailed by Fidelity Bank having accounted for 25.1 million shares valued at N21.8 million, while UBA recorded 22.2 million shares worth N108.1 million; Standard Trust Assurance exchanged 20 million shares valued at N10 million while Zenith Bank traded 18.7 million shares worth N280.4 million.
By the end of the day’s trading, investors had moved 207.2 million shares, 36 percent higher than 152.4 million shares, sold previously, while value of equities traded for the day rose 66 percent to N1.6 billion from N903.5 million. The day’s transactions were carried out in 2,791 deals compared to 2706 deals in previous session.
