Investors lose N25bn to profit-taking

Investors in the equities market lost N25 billion on Tuesday over profit-taking in some highly capitalised shares.

Specifically, the market capitalisation that closed today at N8.831 trillion in contrast to N8.855 trillion recorded after Monday’s trading.

Leading market indicator, All Share Index (ASI) closed at 25,671.23 basis points in contrast to 25,743.03 basis points, recorded after Monday’s session, representing a decline of 0.28 per cent.

ASI dropped consequent on a marginal decline of 0.88 per cent in the NSE Premium Index, following a 1.15 per cent and 0.35 per cent depreciation recorded in Dangote Cement and Zenith Bank respectively.

Meanwhile, other sector indices trended north wards except the NSE 30 index, consumer goods index and industrial goods index that dropped by 0.11 per cent, 0.8per cent and 0.63 per cent respectively.

Diamond Bank led the day’s retreating stocks, with a 5.49 per cent decline to close at 86 kobo per share, Guinness Nigeria lost 4.99 percent to close at N76.32 per share and Caverton 4.26 per cent to close at 90 kobo per share.

Sterling Bank depreciated 4.11 per cent to close at 70 kobo per share, and Wema Bank fell 3.64 per cent to close at 53 kobo per share.

However, Oil and Gas Stocks still sustained growth with a 2.8 per cent appreciation as Total and Forte Oil led the day’s gainers with a growth of 10.24per cent and 10.23 per cent to close at N304.44 and N79.30 per share respectively.

Other top gainers in the course of Tuesday’s transactions were Portland Paints that added 9.47 per cent to close at N2.08 per share, Transcorp grew by 7.89 per cent to close at 82 kobo per share and Nascon Allied Industries improved by 4.51 per cent to close at N6.95 per share.

Conversely,  Diamond Bank emerged the most traded stock with 66.6 million shares valued at N57.8 million, FCMB followed with 26.2 million units of shares worth N26.2 million while Guaranty Trust Bank came third with the sale of 13.9 million shares worth N320.4 million.

FBN Holdings traded 13.4 million shares worth N44.4 million and NEM sold approximately 12.4 million shares at N8.8 million.

Overall, investors traded in 2,894 deals, a total of 189.4 million units of shares valued at N2.5 billion compared to 175.1 million units of shares valued at N3.1 billion traded in 3048 deals on Monday.