The bears maintained dominance on the nation’s bourse on Friday with capitalisation dropping further by N45 billion due to persistent profit taking.

Specifically, the market capitalisation, which opened at N22.589 trillion lost N45 billion or 0.20 per cent to close at N22.544 trillion.

Also, the All-Share Index dipped 86.70 points or 0.20 per cent to close at 43,199.27 from 43,285.97 recorded on Thursday.

Eterna drove the laggards’ chart in percentage terms, shedding 9.03 per cent to close at N6.65 per share.

NGX Group trailed with 8.86 per cent to close at N15.95, while Lasaco Assurance was down by 7.08 per cent to close at N1.05 per share.

UPDC REIT lost 6.67 per cent to close at N5.60, while Wema Bank shed 4.71 per cent to close at 81k per share.

Conversely, Unity Bank led the gainers’ table in percentage terms, gaining 10 per cent to close at 55k per share.

Regence Insurance followed with 5.41 per cent to close at 39k, while Vitafoam garnered 4.78 per cent to close at N21.90 per share.

Chams increased by 4.76 per cent to close at 22k, while FTN Cocoa added 4.76 per cent to close at 44k per share.

A breakdown of the activity chart shows that GTCO was the most active stock trading 499.27 million shares valued at N1.26 billion.

FBN Holdings followed with 18.41 million shares worth N208.68 million, while Access Bank traded 17.48 million shares valued at N155.99 million.

Nigerian Breweries exchanged 7.63 million shares worth N390.55 million, while Fidelity Bank sold 7.55 million shares valued at N19.56 million.

In all, the volume of shares traded dropped by 5.24 per cent with an exchange of 199.52 million shares worth N3.26 billion in 3,917 deals.

This was against 210.55 million shares valued at N2.61 billion traded in 3,423 deals on Thursday.

(NAN)