By Chinyere Joel-Nwokeoma

The bears resurfaced at the nation’s bourse on Thursday as a result of profit taking in Dangote Cement and 17 other stocks.

Accordingly, the All-Share Index declined by 520.76 per cent or 1.12 per cent to close at 46,009.23 from 46,529.99 recorded on Wednesday.

Similarly, the market capitalisation shed N281 billion to close at N24.792 trillion compared with N25.073 trillion posted on Wednesday.

The market negative performance was driven by price depreciation in large and medium capitalised stocks which are; Dangote Cement, Ardova, NEM Insurance, May & Baker and United Capital.

However, the market breadth closed positive with 26 gainers as against 18 losers.

NEM Insurance led the laggards’ chart by 8.57 per cent to close at N3.20 per share.

Dangote Cement followed with 8.53 per cent to close at N260.60, while AIICO Insurance was down by five per cent to close at 76k per share.

Ardova depreciated by 4.96 per cent to close at N12.45, while Multiverse Mining and Exploration declined by 4.76 per cent to close at 20k per share.

The Chief Operating Officer, InvestData Ltd., Mr Ambrose Omordion, attributed the loss to profit taking in Dangote Cement, one of the highly capitalised stock on the NGX.

Omordion said that the stock market remained attractive due to the outcome of the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.

He said that the retention of rates had made equity space more attractive for fund managers especially as the presence of foreign investors in the market had declined in the past two years due to COVID-19.

Conversely, Guinness and International Breweries topped the gainers’ chart in percentage terms by 10 per cent each to close at N46.75 and N5.50 per share, respectively.

Ecobank Transnational Incorporated followed with a gain of 9.63 per cent to close at N11.95 per share.

Prestige Assurance up by 9.52 per cent to close at 46k, while Unilever Nigeria appreciated by 7.28 per cent to close at N14 per share.

Transactions in the shares of UPDC Real Estate Investment Trust topped the activity chart with 46.36 million shares valued at N181.87 million.

Courteville Business Solutions followed with 36.08 million shares worth N21.32 million, while Transcorp traded 16.89 million shares valued at N18.25 million.

Guaranty Trust Holding Company traded 16.05 million shares valued at N409.66 million, while Multiverse Mining and Exploration sold 10.74 million shares worth N2.20 million.

In all, the total volume traded depreciated by 15.06 per cent to 279.44 million shares worth N2.76 billion traded in 4,582 deals.

This was against a total of 328.99 million shares valued at N4.82 billion transacted in 4,219 deals on Wednesday. (NAN)

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