By Dipo Olowookere
The first trading session of the new week on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited ended on a negative note after a 0.16 per cent loss on Monday.
The lowering of the NGX index was majorly due to price depreciation in Okomu Oil, Oando, GTCO, MTN Nigeria, FBN Holdings and 18 other shares.
Business Post reports that Okomu Oil lost 10.00 per cent yesterday to trade at N127.80, NEM Insurance fell by 9.61 per cent to N3.01, Guinea Insurance declined by 9.09 per cent to 20 kobo, Pharma-Deko dropped 8.59 per cent to sell for N1.81, while Oando went down by 7.95 per cent to N4.75.
It was observed that the market also closed with the 23 price gainers yesterday, with Sunu Assurances rising by 10.00 per cent to settle at 33 kobo.
SCOA Nigeria grew by 9.60 per cent to N1.37, RT Briscoe appreciated by 7.14 per cent to 30 kobo, Prestige Assurance also gained 7.14 per cent to sell for 45 kobo, while Japaul rose by 5.41 per cent to 39 kobo.
Apart from the banking index, which grew by 1.14 per cent and the industrial goods sector, which closed flat, every other counter depreciated, with the energy space falling by 1.48 per cent, the insurance sector down by 0.84 per cent and the consumer goods down by 0.43 per cent.
This consequently brought down the All-Share Index (ASI) by 76.53 points to 47,203.39 points from 47,279.92 points and dropped the market capitalisation by N41 billion to N25.436 trillion from N25.477 trillion.
Despite the loss, the exchange recorded more trades, with the trading volume, value and number of deals rising by 26.49 per cent, 115.02 per cent and 30.52 per cent respectively.
A total of 285.5 million shares worth N5.1 billion exchanged hands in 5,342 deals on Monday compared with the 225.7 million shares worth N2.4 billion transacted in 4,093 deals last Friday.
A breakdown showed that GTCO finished the session as the most traded stock with the sale of 44.9 million units of its shares valued at N1.2 billion.Transcorp traded 23.6 million shares for N27.5 million, Fidelity Bank exchanged 23.2 million stocks worth N66.4 million, Nigerian Breweries sold 18.2 million equities valued at N872.5 million, while FBN Holdings traded 13.5 million shares for N149.4 million. NLNG, Officials to Stand Trial over Alleged Contract Scam