Floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange Nigerian stocks depreciated by 0.09 per cent on Tuesday in their worst show since year start as investors dumped food and beverages stocks led by Nestle and Nigerian Breweries, and partial profit-booking weighed.
Drop in the share prices of NGX Group and UBA strengthened the loss, with the underwhelming performance of the broader index tempered by gain by BUA Foods, which rose for the sixth straight session.
Market breadth , an indicator of sentiment of investors towards trade, was negative given that 26 losers were reported relative to 17 gainers.
The all-share index was 37.83 points down at 43,859.30 just as market capitalisation dipped to N23.6 trillion.
Since the turn of the year, the index has advanced by 2.7 per cent. TOP FIVE GAINERS
BUA FGoods led the gainers, appreciating by 10 per cent to close at N64.35. Eterna went up 5.09 per cent to N5.57. Union Bank climbed to N5.65, notching up 4.63 per cent in the process.
Wema added 3.57 per cent to end the trade at N0.87. Oando completed the top 5, climbing by 2.83 per cent to N4.73. TOP FIVE LOSERS
Mutual Benefits led laggards, declining by 10 per cent to close at N0.27. Berger Paints slumped to N7.70, recording 9.94 per cent depreciation.
UPDC REIT shed 8.14 per cent to close at N3.95. Nestle fell to N1,435, losing 7.81 per cent. Unity Bank closed at N0.46, going down by 6.12 per cent. TOP FIVE TRADES
In all, 294.5 million shares estimated at N6.8 billion were traded in 4,501 deals.
Transcorp was the most active stock with 58.4 million units of its shares worth N57.4 million traded in 102 deals.BUA Foods had 51.5 million units of its shares priced at N3.3 billion exchange hands in 206 transactions. FBN Holdings traded 16.5 million shares estimated at N197.3 million in 165 transactions.GTCO had 14.1 million shares valued at N358.2 million traded in 388 deals. Access Bank traded 13.3 million shares valued at N126.7 million in 171 deals.