Activities at the Nigerian Stock Market on Wednesday, March 23, were characterized by series of losses as profit taking resurfaces.
The market capitalization shed N97 billion or 1.09 per cent to close at N8.853 trillion, as against the N8.950 trillion achieved on Tuesday.
Market analysts attributed the slide to profit taking embarked upon by some investors, due to a hike in the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) to 12 per cent from 11 per cent.
They stated that the dip was impacted by value depreciation recorded in the stocks of FBN Holdings, Total Nigeria, Mobil, Zenith Bank, Dangote Cement, GT Bank and Lafarge Africa.
Mobil Oil recorded the highest loss, to lead the losers’ chart with a loss of N7.54, to close at N154.91 per share.
Total trailed with N7.49 to close at N142.46, while Dangote Cement depreciated by N4 to close at N164 per share.
Guinness lost N3.07 to close at N108.93 and Seplat dropped by N3 to close at N308 per share.
Conversely, Nigerian Breweries led the gainers’ table, increasing by N4.41 to close at N113.61 per share.
Vitafoam followed with a gain of 20k to close at N4.30, while NAHCO gained 19k to close at N3,99 per share.
Oando increased by 9k to close at N4 and Fidelity Bank appreciated by 6k to close at N1.40 per share.
United Capital emerged the most active stock, exchanging 95.96 million shares worth N199.62 million.
Access Bank followed with an exchange of 60.75 million shares valued at N239.84 million and Multitrex traded 40 million shares worth N20 million.
The FCMB Group sold 38.13 million shares worth N29 million and Zenith Bank transacted 28.68 million shares valued at N356.49 million.
In all, a total of 398.28 million shares worth N2.65 billion were exchanged by investors in 3,581 deals.
NAN reports that this was against the 344.12 million shares valued at N2.46 billion traded in 4,386 deals on Tuesday. (NAN)
