Investors’ wealth depletes by N56bn

Investment in the nation’s equity market yesterday continue declining profile as the market capitalisation dipped by N56 billion. Specifically, the value of equities went down by 0.43 per cent to N12.911 trillion from N12.967 trillion recorded the previous day while the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Shares Index dropped by 174.79 basis points to 40278.82 points from 40,453.61 point traded on Tuesday.

A review of the transactions showed that investors bought 354.886 million shares worth N5.915 billion in 5091 deals against 343.049 million shares valued at N4.366 billion exchanged on Tuesday in 5548.

A breakdown of the trading indicated that 7UP led the gainers table, appreciating by N7.67 kobo to close at N82.64 kobo, Mobil Plc followed with a gain of N3.00 to close at N125.00, UAC property appreciated by N1.06 kobo to close at N21.05 kobo while Larfarge Wapco and Trans nationwide Express grew by N0.90 kobo and N0.23 kobo respectively to close at N108.90 kobo and N2.55 kobo.

Conversely, Forte Oil topped loser chart dropping by N2.21 kobo to close at N100.00, Nigerian Breweries trailed with a loss of N2.20 kobo to close at N150.00 while PZ cussons failed by N1.69 kobo to close at N36.31 kobo. Conoil and Dangote Cement dropped by N0.98 kobo and N0.81 kobo respectively to close at N50.00 and N238.96 kobo.

Further breakdown showed that Wema Bank was the most active stocks in volume terms as it traded 65.115 million shares worth N62.891 million, GTBank followed with 34.907 million shares valued at N957.105 million while Zenith International Bank exchanged 28.993 million shares cost N606.825 million.