The bears resurfaced at the nation’s bourse, Nigeria Exchange Ltd., on Wednesday as a result of profit taking in Dangote Sugar and 15 other stocks.
Accordingly, the All-Share Index declined by 39.64 basis points or 0.08 per cent to close at 47,207.27 from 47.246.91 recorded on Tuesday.
Similarly, the market capitalisation shed N39.64 billion to close at N25.442 trillion compared with N25.463 trillion posted on Tuesday.
The market negative performance was driven by price depreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks which are; Dangote Sugar, Afripud, CHAMS, Mutual Benefits Insurance Plc, and EcoBank Transnational Incorporation (ETI).
However, the market breadth closed positive with 24 gainers as against 16 losers.
Afripud led the laggards’ chart by 5.77 per cent to close at N7.35 per share.
Dangote Sugar followed with 5.28 per cent to close at N17.05, while CHAMS Insurance was down by 4.17 per cent to close at 23k per share.
Mutual Benefits Assurance depreciated by 3.7 per cent to close at 26k, while ETI declined by 2.98 per cent to close at N11.40 per share.
Conversely, Etransact topped the gainers’ chart in percentage terms by 10 per cent, followed by RTBriscoe with 8.86 per cent to close at 79k per share.
Ecobank Transnational Incorporated followed with a gain of 9.63 per cent to close at N11.95 per share.
Niger Insurance up by 9.09 per cent to close at 24k, while Mayer and Baker appreciated by nine per cent to close at N5.45 per share.
Also, Wema Bank gained by 8.99 per cent to close at 97k.
Transactions in the shares of Transcorp topped the activity chart with 23.19 million shares valued N29.09 million.
Fidelity Bank followed with 15.52 million shares worth N48.06 million, while United Capital traded 14.71 million shares valued N204.66 million.
Regalins traded 13.77 million shares valued at N5.03 million, while First Bank Nigeria Holdings sold 13.17 million shares worth N150.17 million.
In all, the total volume traded depreciated by 43.32 per cent to 230.66 million shares worth N3.49 billion traded in 4,377 deals.
This was against a total of 421.82 million shares valued N5.16 billion transacted in 5,992 deals on Tuesday.
