Medview tops trading as market drops 0.51 percent

The equities market dropped for the third consecutive trading session to record a decline of 0.51 percent yesterday.

‎Investors’ optimism measured by market breadth was negative as there were just nine gainers in the face of 27 losers.

Consequently, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalization shed 0.51 percent, bringing the Year-to-Date return to -3.61 percent.

The ASI closed at 25,903.55, which is 132.69 below Tuesday’s 26,036.24.

Market Capitalization closed at N8.927 trillion against the previous close of N8.973 trillion.

Meanwhile, Medview Airlines emerged the day’s most actively traded stock with 72.5 million shares worth N109.2 million. Paints and Manufacturing Company (Paintcom) was next with 58.7 million units valued at N61.6 million and Diamond Bank was third with 43.1 million shares worth N40.6 million. Standard Trust Alliance (STACO) was the fourth most-traded stock with 20 million units valued at N10 million while Fidelity Bank emerged fifth on the day’s top traded list with 18.3 million shares at N16.6 million.

Exactly 305 million shares exchanged hands when trading ended Wednesday. This was 48 percent greater than Tuesday’s 205.8 million units, while the value of equities traded on the day declined 42.9 percent from previous session’s N2.8 billion to N1.6 billion which was recorded for the day.

Following the release of the company’s results on Tuesday, Forte Oil’s share price closed at N67.66, having dropped 5 percent to lead the day’s declining stocks. Guinness and Unilever Nigeria followed with a depreciation of 4.99 percent each to close at N60.95 and N33.73, respectively Tourist Company shed 4.89 percent to close at N3.50 while Neimeth decreased 4.62 percent to close at 62 kobo per share.

WAPCO topped the gainers” list with 8.27 percent to close at N44.40 percent, followed by Caverton with 4.00 percent to close at 78 kobo per share while Access Bank added 3.18 percent to close at N6.81. Unity Bank increased 2.56 percent to close at 80 kobo and UBA gained 2.31 percent to close at N4.88 per share.

The day’s transactions were carried out in 2,620 deals as against 2,914 on Tuesday.