The local equities market sustained its downtrend as its All Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) fell by 0.19 per cent to 25,550.31 basis points on Wednesday.
Basically, profit-taking in Tier I bank stocks weighed down the bourse. Consequently, the Month-to-Date gain of ASI moderated to 0.9 per cent while Year-to-Date loss increased to -4.8 per cent.
Market sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, was negative as 17 stocks gained relative to 19 losers. Royal Exchange and NEM Insurance recorded the largest losses of the day having depreciated by ten per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively; while Learn Africa and Berger Paints topped the gainers’ list with 9.6 per cent and 7.4 per cent respective gain.
Performance across sub-sector gauges was bullish as three out of five indices closed southwards: the NSE banking, NSE Insurance and NSE Industrial indices declined by 0.58 per cent, 1.49 per cent and 0.23 per cent respectively.
On the positive side, the NSE Consumer Goods and NSE Oil/Gas indices rose by 0.07 per cent and 0.41 per cent respectively.
Meanwhile, the total volume traded declined by 13.6 per cent to 211.82 million units, valued at N2.42 billion and exchanged in 3,651 deals. FCMB was the most traded stock by volume at 30.33 million units while MTN Nigeria was the most trade stock by value at N1.06 billion.