Trading at the nation’s capital market continued in red on Wednesday with the market capitalisation dropping by N24 billion, maintaining the negative run for the third consecutive session.

Market capitalisation, which opened at N20.450 trillion, lost N24 billion or 0.12 per cent to close at N20.426 trillion.

Also, the All-Share Index dipped 46.77 points or 0.12 per cent to close at 39,204.52 from 39,251.29 posted on Tuesday.

Consequently, the year-to-date loss increased to 2.7 per cent.

The performance was buoyed by investors’ profit-taking sentiments in all the major sectors except oil and gas stocks.

The market negative performance was driven by price depreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks amongst which are; Guaranty Trust Bank Holding Company, Zenith Bank, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, International Breweries and SCOA.

However, the market breadth closed at par with 15 losers and 15 gainers.

SCOA dominated the losers’ chart in percentage terms by 9.72 per cent to close at N1.30 per share.

Veritas Kapital Assurance followed with 8.70 per cent to close at 21k, while AXA Mansard Insurance lost 5.68 per cent to close at 83k per share.

Chams dropped 4.55 per cent to close at 21k, while International Breweries shed four per cent to close at N4.80 per share.

Conversely, Regency Alliance Insurance led the gainers’ chart in percentage terms by 8.51 per cent to close at 51k per share.

Universal Insurance followed with a gain of five per cent to close at 21k, while Sovereign Trust Insurance went up by 4.17 per cent to close at 25k per share.

FCMB Group rose by 3.45 per cent to close at N3, while Oando gained 3.18 per cent to close at N4.54 per share.

Transactions in the shares of FBN Holdings topped the activity chart with 86.01 million shares valued at N640.88 million.

Access Bank followed with 71.07 million shares worth N671.34 million, while Universal Insurance traded 22.32 million shares valued at N4.52 million.

Guaranty Trust Bank Holding Company traded 19.44 million shares valued at N529.13 million, while Transcorp transacted 16.10 million shares worth N14.69 million.

In all, the total volume of trades decreased by 0.53 per cent to 354.06 billion units valued at N3.20 billion traded in 4,095 deals.

This was against 355.94 million shares worth N2.87 billion traded in 4,241 deals on Tuesday. 

(NAN)