Bears resurface on NGX, indices down by 0.09%

Bearish sentiment resurfaced on the nation’s bourse on Wednesday with the key indicators dropping by 0.09 per cent amid profit taking on some blue chips.

Specifically, the All-Index lost 37.94 points or 0.09 per cent to close at 41,975.45 from 42,013.39 posted on Tuesday.

Accordingly, the month-to-date loss increased to 0.2 per cent, while the year-to-date gain moderated to 4.2 per cent.

Similarly, the market capitalisation dropped by N20 billion to close at N21.905 trillion against N21.925 trillion recorded on Tuesday.

The downturn was as a result of sell-off sentiments in all major sectors, except the consumer goods sector.

The market negative performance was driven by price depreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks which are; Ardova Plc, Lafarge Africa, Nigerian Exchange Group, Zenith Bank and Eterna.

Also, the market breadth closed negative recording 20 losers as against 13 gainers.

Lasaco Assurance led the losers’ chart in percentage by 9.40 per cent to close at N1.06 per share.

Sovereign Trust Insurance and Chams followed with a decline of 8.33 per cent each to close at 22k each per share.

Ardova shed 7.53 per cent to close at N13.50, while Linkage Assurance depreciated by 7.02 per cent to close at 53k per share.

On the other hand, Multiverse Mining and Exploration and Universal Insurance recorded the highest price gain of 10 per cent each to close at 22k per share each.

Honeywell Flour Mills followed with a gain 9.78 per cent to close at N3.48 per share.

Sterling Bank gained 6.85 per cent to close at N1.56, while Wapic Insurance appreciated by 6.25 per cent to close at 51k per share.

Transactions in the shares of FBN Holdings topped the activity chart with 58.61 million shares valued at N614.76 million.

Multiverse Mining and Exploration followed with 32.08 million shares worth N6.44 million, while Mutual Benefits Assurance traded 21.55 million shares valued at N5.26 million.

Sterling Bank traded 18.48 million shares valued at N28.15 million, while Transcorp transacted 15.97 million shares worth N16.14 million.

The total volume of trades decreased by 37.20 per cent to 292.94 million units valued at N2.06 billion exchanged in 4,899 deals.

This was in contrast with a total of 318.97 million worth N3.28 billion traded in 5,492 deals traded on Tuesday.